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

Senator Conroy says yes, they can be inconsistent; yes, Labor can walk both sides of the road. Well, do you know what? You get hurt when you try and walk both sides of the road. What of course is happening here is that we made adjustments to the unsustainable, unfunded, unaffordable pie-in-the-sky spending promises of Labor. We have brought down spending growth. Instead of having the pie-in-the-sky spending growth that you locked into your medium-term trajectory, we have brought that spending growth trajectory down. It stands to reason that, as a result, government net debt is lower than it would have been if Labor had still been in government. Because of what has happened on the revenue side of the budget, of course there have been certain consequences. Nobody denies that. (Time expired)