Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Hansard source

That is Senator Cameron’s first question, and a very important question it is. Global market financial turmoil is still creating considerable uncertainty in the global economy. What is known as the US subprime crisis, which has caused financial markets and indeed share markets around the world to decline rapidly and in some areas to go literally into meltdown, is still continuing. When I was in the United States—Washington and New York—last week, all the signs were that that is going to continue. We are going to have a continuing period of global financial market uncertainty. It is in this context that we need a strong budget surplus to provide a buffer against global turmoil. We need to ensure that the Reserve Bank in Australia has room to move, we need to finance critical national building investments for the future and we also need to keep downward pressure on inflation. That is why we have built a strong budget surplus for this financial year of some $22 billion. That is very, very necessary in the context of the reasons that I have outlined.

Part of this budget surplus of $22 billion over the four financial years identifies savings of some $33.3 billion. The Labor government have identified savings of some $33.3 billion, including $7.3 billion in savings in this financial year. We are proud to boast that we are fiscal conservatives. We have taken the current state of economic circumstances very seriously indeed. It is the height of economic irresponsibility for the Liberal opposition to be tampering with this budget surplus, vandalising the budget surplus—