Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

Our strategy is to reduce government spending as a share of the economy. Our strategy is to get spending growth under control. We inherited an unsustainable and unaffordable spending growth trajectory from our predecessors which was taking us to $667 billion worth of government debt within a decade and growing. That was assuming that there would be no tax relief to adjust for bracket creep.

All we have done in this budget, our first budget, so far is contain spending growth to one per cent real growth over the forward estimates. Over the medium to long term, we have reduced spending growth to 2.7 per cent real growth, down from 3.7 per cent under Labor. Imagine if we actually had to cut spending what the fallout would have been. (Time expired)