Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

What I will rule out—because I was asked to rule out; we're playing the 'rule out, rule in' game—is taking a lecture from those opposite about tax and spend and fiscal management. They like to present themselves as fiscal conservatives. But we know—because we've got the budget now, and we've got the briefings—that as you got more out of control as a government, as the former Prime Minister took on more and more of your portfolios and made all the decisions, you ripped up and broke the budget. That's what happened.

Now, what I can rule out is accepting any lectures and what I will say is: we will be implementing the policies we took to the election and we will be dealing with the waste, the rorts, the mismanagement and the failed priorities of your term of government. You'll see that in the budget.