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

I can indeed. Here we are, in the last budget of the worst finance minister in Australia's history. She put forward a spending cut, applying an efficiency dividend to university funding. The value of that spending cut over the current forward estimates is $1.2 billion. Senator Wong, having initiated it, having banked it in the budget, is now voting against it. Here we have ending the discount for paying HECS fees up-front—$336 million over the current forward estimates, a Wong savings measure. She initiated it, she banked it in the budget and, guess what, she is now voting against it. There is the change in Labor's Student Start-Up Scholarship. Instead of providing a grant, Senator Wong said the loan repayable should be repayable through HECS—$2.1 billion dollars over the forward estimates. She is nodding. She knows that they are her savings measures. They are savings measures which she initiated, which she banked in her last budget and which she is now voting against. That is the sort of reckless attitude that we are getting from the Labor Party today.

Tonight Mr Shorten has the opportunity to pull Senator Wong into line. Tonight Mr Shorten has the opportunity to show that he has actually got the strength to provide leadership in the Labor Party, that he actually has the strength to do the right thing in the national interest. We are waiting. Australia will be watching. Australia wants to know where the money is coming from. We are saying to Bill Shorten, 'Show us the money.'