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

I thank Senator Di Natale for that question. The Commission of Audit is doing some very important work for the government as we set out to repair the budget mess that we have inherited from the previous government. It is important to remember that we inherited a budget situation with $123 billion worth of cumulative deficits over the forward estimates—$123 billion worth of deficits. The previous government inherited a budget in very good shape—no government net debt, a budget surplus of $20 billion, cash in the bank—and in six short years they turned that into a situation where debt is now heading for $667 billion without corrective action. The previous minister for finance presided over $107 billion worth of budget blow-outs in just the three years that she was minister. I will outline what we have done so far. We took $42 billion worth of—