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

The Australian government is taking action. The Australian government has a pro-growth budget and we put our pro-growth budget to the Australian people. And do you know what? The Australian people gave it the tick. They made a decision that your agenda was reckless and that our agenda was the better agenda for the economy and for Australian families wanting to get ahead. Former treasurers have the liberty to comment on monetary policy. I leave monetary policy to the Reserve Bank. It is entirely a matter for the Reserve Bank to independently assess what they believe the appropriate monetary policy settings should be. We will continue to make decisions on fiscal policy.

I say to you again: guess what, we were elected at the last election to implement our plan. We will be implementing our plan. We'll continue to make decisions on fiscal policy settings into the future, as appropriate, and we will not take any lectures from the Labor Party, who would have put the Australian economy into a much weaker position as a result of their high-taxing, high-spending agenda, which was rejected by the Australian people. (Time expired)