Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

It is clear in the budget that those expenses in relation to providing the $10 billion allocation are provided for in the budget in the normal way, in the way that all other expenditures of the government are provided for in a budget context. Of course, the May budget is a budget in which the government has returned to surplus—not a projected one, but a real one. All of the allocations that the government has made are there for everybody to see in the context of the budget. We didn't project a surplus and then not deliver it; we delivered a surplus and returned most of that surplus to savings, and we've made some prudent allocations to meet the public policy objectives that the government made clear in the election.

In fact, the passage of this legislation through the Senate today would mean, in terms of the substantial commitments that the government made during the course of the election, that we have, despite the trenchant opposition of those opposite, worked our way through all of those election commitments. This is a government that does what it says it was going to do. In fact, in relation to the Housing Australia Future Fund, this is a commitment that we made in the context of what was not recognised by the previous government as a problem. We have made a significant commitment here and a significant series of commitments more broadly in terms of our housing policy.