Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I would refer the senator to the targeted relief for those on income support payments, which were such an important part of our previous budgets and which form part of the $23 billion of measures we have put in place. But yes, we understand people are doing it tough. They are. If I may point out, one of the things governments can do about inflation is run fiscal policy that delivers a surplus. You might want to belittle that, which is what you did when I mentioned it before, but that is one of the things governments can do. You can run a surplus, which is what we did at the last budget. The other thing—

I'll take that interjection. Senator Hume seems to want to focus on public servants. We're going to have a sacking-public-servants approach to inflation from the coalition. That's their great plan: 'We're going to sack a few more public servants'—I mean, really—'We're going to vote for higher energy prices'! That's what they're going to do. That's their inflation plan, everyone: higher electricity prices and sack a few workers.