Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I will plead guilty to that. I think a lot of Australians would have accepted a number of measures in this budget if they felt that the pain was being shared more across the board. I think the government has miscalculated in a number of measures. I hope the front page of the Financial Reviewthe story by Laura Tingle and Phil Coorey—was accurate this morning; I understand the Treasurer said that it was not accurate. I do believe that there is a task to repair the budget; I do not believe there is a budget emergency. I get what the government is saying about repairing the budget; I just disagree as to the path it has gone down to achieve that. I hope that we will see some further dialogue with the government in an attempt to remedy the budget task, but in a way that is much more equitable than it has been to date.