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

The answer is no. Expenditure today is lower than it would have been if Labor had stayed in government. We continue to work hard to get the unaffordable and unsustainable spending growth trajectory we inherited from Labor under control. When we came into government, we inherited a trajectory taking us to federal government spending of 26.5 per cent as a share of GDP by 2023-24 and rising. As you can see in our budget, as updated at MYEFO, federal government spending as a share of GDP is projected to reduce—to reduce—from 25.9 per cent this year to 25.3 per cent over the forward estimates period.