Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Yet again, those opposite have decided we can just fritter away the budget surplus—just give out another concession, just fritter it away as if it did not make any difference to the economic circumstances that families in this country face. What families in this country need is responsible economic management delivered by its central government. It does not need cheap political point-scoring from a Senate that seems to be committed to obstruction and blowing a $6 billion hole in the budget. To those who continue to argue that we can just lose that $6 billion—and apparently there is another chunk of money that should be just frittered away out of the surplus, evolving out of that question: just give it all away; it won’t matter—there is a reason—