Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr President. Of course, in answering these questions directly and in a relevant fashion it is always important to provide the appropriate context in which we have had to make those decisions. I can confirm what has been publicly announced, and that is that we have provided a grant of $8.8 billion to the Reserve Bank, which was the responsible decision to make, given Labor recklessly and irresponsibly depleted the reserves of the Reserve Bank and made a whole series of other bad decisions.

The former minister for finance very well knows that budget positions are updated in the usual way in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, which will happen before Christmas. Let me just address one other point that was raised in that question.