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

I would make the point again that these sorts of questions are the reason why we have a Senate estimates committee process and why, after the budget is delivered, for two weeks from nine in the morning until 11 o'clock at night, we sit down in however many different committees looking in very fine detail at every single one of the budget measures that the government has put forward—in order to drill down on these sorts of issues.

The important point to make here is that when we talk about a cost to the budget in terms of revenue forgone over the forward estimates, that is because of a bring-forward of a tax deduction that would have been able to be claimed in any event. Over time and eventually, businesses would have been able to claim the deduction for any such investment—but it would have been over a longer period of time. So I guess, over time, it will balance itself out.