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

I can confirm the numbers published in the budget papers. That is No. 1. No. 2 is this government is maintaining a very clear fiscal discipline. This government—and this has been the case for some time—has imposed on our revenue projections an assumption that tax as a share of GDP will not ever go past 23.9 per cent.

What has the Labor Party done? The Labor Party has removed that discipline. The Labor Party has removed that cap. When Labor went to the last election, they went with pre-election costings, letting tax as a share of GDP rip. There was no upward limit at all—none, zip, zero. Essentially, you were saying that there was no level of tax that could be taken out of the economy that was too high. You went to the last election saying there is no limit to how much tax we could take out of the economy, suggesting that somehow it would not hurt growth and would not hurt jobs.

This government is disciplined. This government is disciplined on the spending side and disciplined on the revenue side. We are raising as much as we need in order to be able to fund the essential services that Australians rely on. We are making sure that money is spent as wisely and efficiently and effectively as possible. Spending as a share of GDP is now, over the forward estimates, projected to go down to 25 per cent, which is actually very close to the long-term average of 24.8 per cent. When we came into government, it was headed for 26.5 per cent within the decade and rising. That is the trajectory that we inherited from Senator Wong as finance minister: spending as a share of GDP was heading for 26.5 per cent and rising over the medium term at the time. We have arrested the increase. We have brought spending growth under control. Instead of 3.7 per cent growth in spending year on year, we brought it down to below two per cent, on average, over the forward estimates per year. In the 2017-18 forward estimates, spending growth is under control. Spending as a share of GDP is lower now than it was— (Time expired)