Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I am aware of alternative approaches—to promise a lot of spending that is unfunded, that does not actually have the funds to pay for it. As I told the chamber before, we find that, of Labor's promised $30 billion in spending, $20 billion of the so-called savings—or extra taxes—are missing. Of course, this is not the first time Labor has got it wrong in schools funding or higher education policy. On the proposed HECS debt policy that Mr Shorten had in his budget reply last year, the changes there had three different policies within 24 hours in terms of the costings. That is the type of arrogance we know from the Labor Party; they are happy to throw cash around. That is the type of arrogance that we saw from the missing Senator Dastyari yesterday, when he decided to abuse South Australians for living in South Australia, when he wanted to demean South Australia. He is obviously not here because he still has Senator Wong's bootprint on his backside! Clearly those opposite are continuing the arrogance from their years in government. (Time expired)