Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, I reject any suggestion that this was a dodgy process. This was a considered decision of the government, having considered a range of alternatives. The other point I would make is that, when we came into government, not only did we inherit a weakening economy and rising unemployment but we also inherited a rapidly deteriorating budget position. In the 11 weeks after Labor's last budget, the budget position deteriorated by $33 billion. In 2016-17 and in 2017-18 we delivered a substantially better final budget outcome than was forecast at budget time, an improvement of about $4 billion in 2016-17 and about $19.3 billion in 2017-18. Indeed for the first two months of this financial year the bottom line is $6.6 billion better to the end of August than was anticipated at budget time. (Time expired)