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

I think all of us are a little bemused at which line the shadow minister for finance is actually running. Is she saying the Public Service is too big or too small? It's interesting—they want to have it both ways. What we do know is that Mr Dutton wants to remove some 36,000 jobs, and we know what Liberal governments have previously done when it comes to the Public Service. We also know what's in the budget papers. Either the shadow minister for finance is unable to read the budget papers properly or she is being deliberately misleading about what those budget papers contain. What I'd say to her is that these are the same methodologies that governments past have used in relation to the forecasting of wages and salaries. I'm sorry if you can't understand that, Senator Hume.