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

We must improve the state of our budget. We need to make those responsible decisions that will ensure the budget is able to withstand and respond to future shocks when they come—and they will come. We have to make room in the budget to repair the mess that we inherited, and we also have to make room for sensible spending in those areas where we're seeing increased pressure: Medicare, hospitals, aged care, the NDIS and other social services, defence and national security—all of these areas where the pressures on the budget are increasing. They're accelerating, not decreasing, and our budget has to be in a position where we are able to deal with that.

So we will go through and deal with the legacy of poor budgeting that we saw from the budget vandals opposite. We will fix up those areas where we can, and we will make room for Australians' priorities in those areas I've just outlined.