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

There are the numbers that I just read out, Senator Colbeck—the difference between 4.1 and 1.7—for example. There's also the fact that we have found $77 billion in savings. In your last budget, I'll tell you how many savings you found: zero. We didn't have to look very hard, because there were none. There were no savings. You went on a spending spree at a time when inflation was at its highest. That is what was occurring. We came into government. We found savings. We returned money to the budget. We've lowered the debt. We've turned deficits into surpluses. We've done all of that at the same time that we've shown restraint in spending, and we've been able to meet some of the urgent pressures there were across government services and, indeed, to help people with some of the cost-of-living issues that we've been seeing over the last year or so.