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

The last part of that question was wrong for the reasons I outlined in the answer to the first question. In terms of risks to the budget, quite clearly the risk to the budget is those opposite: $70 billion of cuts to services that they will have to make should they ever want to form government. Seventy billion dollars of cuts to services do not pay the age pension for two years—two years nonpayment of the age pension. They are the sorts of cuts that those opposite are trying to hide. That is why they have their costings done by catering companies and by accounting companies who are found to have acted unprofessionally. That is why they hide from the scrutiny and transparency of the Parliamentary Budget Office. That is why they will not front up to the Australian people and tell them what they want to do.