Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

These are Treasury and Finance costings, Senator. If you do not like them I think you have got a problem with the budget. The thing I was most interested in was the description by the coalition’s spokesman Mr Robert, who described the fiscal balance as complete nonsense because it relied on adding up every increase in the pension over decades. He said no other policy is done that way. Perhaps he should have a chat to Peter Costello, because Mr Costello introduced accrual accounting. The method of accounting that Mr Robert is dismissing has been used as the basis of budget measures since the 1999-2000 budget introduced by Peter Costello. You have no idea about budget discipline, you have no idea about how the budget works and you are fiscally irresponsible. (Time expired)