Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I'm sorry that Senator Gallagher has asked that question. I thought it was just the foolishness of Mr Chalmers in relation to pursuing this claim of secret cuts somehow. As I've already addressed publicly, Mr President, this budget—

I'm happy, Senator Wong, to repeat it here: clearly, there are failings on your side in the ability to read the budget paper. There is a reduction—Senator Watt's holding it up. Go and have a look at his screen. It says a reduction in decisions taken but not yet announced. Guess why, Mr President? Because we've announced them. There's your answer, Senator Gallagher, that in important areas, like women's safety, we had made a provision in MYEFO for women's safety. We made the provision and now we've announced the spending on women's safety—a very important provision that we put in place in this budget.

We did the same in areas of apprenticeship reform. We made a provision in MYEFO and now we've announced the spending on apprenticeship reform. Do you know what this is, Mr President? It's careful, prudent budgeting. It's recognising there may be expenses that come forward in the future, and you put some away to meet those expenses. That, of course, is why our government is able to maintain a AAA credit rating. It's why our government is able to hand down budgets where the deficits are lower than expected. Those opposite, when in government, when they announced budgets, they ordinarily had deficits far greater than what they had forecast. We've come through a pandemic and what we have done in every year since facing that pandemic at budgets, budget updates and this budget is reduce the size of the forecast deficits, thanks to our careful management. (Time expired)

Honourable senators interjecting—