Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

The Rudd government aims to address the long-term economic challenge that this country faces, and a critical part of addressing that challenge is to set a firm foundation for government spending that delivers the maximum efficiency and the maximum quality service to people who deal with government departments—particularly bodies like the Department of Human Services, Centrelink and Medicare—and the maximum quality output for government spending on things like IT and wider procurement. That is critical to ensuring that we get longer term value for money, that we get the best possible outcomes from government spending and that it creates the space to do the kind of investing in skills and infrastructure that our country so desperately needs to put longer term downward pressure on inflation. We are committed to the short-term task of cutting government spending to put downward pressure on inflation and tackle the problem that the former government, the now opposition, has left us. And we are committed to the longer term task of building the Australian economy for the working families of this country so that their taxes provide good value for money and we get good economic outcomes in the longer term.

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