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

Last night's budget set out a clear path on the return to surplus. The govern­ment set out its decisions about where we are reducing expenditure, where we are taking savings, where we are reprioritising and how we bring back the budget to surplus by 2012-13. We are very conscious of cost of living pressures; we are very conscious of the price pressures arising from the gathering pace of the mining boom. That is why it is responsible to bring the budget back to surplus.

We have presented our decisions and our discipline. What we look forward to, and the Australian people deserve, is Mr Abbott tomorrow night in his budget reply demonstrating that same discipline. It is very interesting: they have gone very quiet over there. When they talk about discipline on this side, they do not want to talk about what they would do. They simply want to pretend they can get— (Time expired)