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

This Labor government will always put jobs and growth first. We will always do that, and that is what we have done, because, when you are faced with the second largest write-down in revenues since the Great Depression, a government has two choices: you can cut to the bone and chase revenue down and ensure unemployment rises and the economy stalls—is that the prescription?—or you can make the decision that we did to defer the return to surplus, because the economy required us to make that decision, delivering a measured return to surplus and taking $43 billion worth of savings to ensure that we can deliver programs like DisabilityCare and the schools reform package. That is the choice this government has made, and we have laid it out. (Time expired)