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

If we want to protect our living standards, if we want to build stronger opportunity for the future and if we do not want to live at the expense of our children and grandchildren, then we need to repair the budget. I might just reflect a bit further: it was a Labor government that first ensured that the ABC was subject to the same efficiency dividend as every other taxpayer funded agency of government. It was the coalition in 1997-98, when John Howard and Peter Costello put the plan in place that restored our public finances, that exempted the ABC from the efficiency dividend. But under Senator Wong agencies right across government—in health, in education, you name it—were all subject to an efficiency dividend. I never ever heard Senator Wong say that imposing an efficiency dividend was tantamount to a cut. You are changing your arguments to suit yourselves. (Time expired)