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

Foreign Minister Bishop is doing an outstanding job to make sure that the investment in foreign aid actually delivers real outcomes, because, under the previous administration, Mr Rudd was doing his work to do the numbers to become the next United Nations Secretary-General. Not only did he spend a lot of money on wasteful programs; he also spent a lot of money on massively increasing the size of the Public Service. The increase in the number of public servants in AusAID was much higher than the increase in actual funding into programs. What we are doing is saying, 'We can't continue to spend money that we haven't got. That would be irresponsible to our children and grandchildren. So we need to get the budget back under control.' That is what we are doing. Once the budget is back under control, we can have a conversation about how we best prioritise future spending decisions. But, in the meantime, while we have a deficit— (Time expired)