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

I'm very happy to. I've been saying this in this place for some time. I think Senator McKim asks me a question virtually every sitting week about stage 3 tax cuts. The fact is stage 3 tax cuts have been legislated by this chamber. They are in place. Stage 3 will commence in July next year. The policy we took to the election was that those tax cuts remain and our position has not changed. That is what I was saying yesterday. That continues to be our position. I don't think it's a surprise to anyone. That's the position we have had for some time. The position that Senator McKim raises with me on this issue is related to the budget pressures that we have and how we will meet those pressures—and they are real. We have inherited a trillion dollars of Liberal debt. The debt had doubled before the pandemic. We've got a lot of pressures coming our way. We had a lot of time bombs or little booby traps built into the budget that we inherited, and we are working through all those. So there is enormous pressure on the budget. That's the context in which I gave that answer yesterday.