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

Firstly, that is not actually what he said. The question as framed by the good senator is not actually what Mr Ray said. I know that Labor seems to be getting some pleasure out of the fact that we are going through a more challenging global economic situation as a country at the moment, but the important point that I would make again—and I have made this point several times before—is that both the Australian economy and the budget are in a better position than they would have been if Labor had stayed in government. If you are concerned about where the economy and the budget are now, how much worse do you think things would have been if the mining tax had stayed in place; if the carbon tax had stayed in place; if the unsustainable spending growth trajectory imposed on Australia by the worst finance minister in the history of the Commonwealth had stayed in place; if we had not rolled out our ambitious free trade agenda—helping our exporters be more successful in markets like China, Korea and Japan; if we had not rolled out our very ambitious infrastructure investment program, investing in productivity and enhancing infrastructure around Australia? The truth is that what Mr Ray did yesterday, very appropriately, was to explain a change to a technical assumption in the projection years of the budget. I do not expect Labor to understand, because Labor does not understand about how to manage money. People across Australia know that whenever Labor is in government they make a mess of the budget and the coalition has to fix it up.