Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

As the finance minister correctly interjects, where is the list of proposed savings by those opposite? Not one. Do I hear any objection about where the savings are to occur? Not one. So we stand difficult decisions: a $22-billion surplus, for which there will be, automatically, controversy in the Australian community. It was a tough decision but a tough decision anchored in responsible economic management for the future—in contrast to a $22-billion raid on the surplus, one which grows further.

Returning to what the OECD Economic Outlook had to say, it says on page 142 of the report:

To avoid rising inflation expectations causing strong wage growth, monetary conditions need to be kept tight until domestic demand and price pressures have moderated sufficiently. In this context,—

the OECD goes on—

the stabilising role that fiscal policy should play is welcome.

That is, ‘the stabilising role that fiscal policy should play is welcome’. Fiscal policy is what you do with your budget. Fiscal policy is whether you are going to have a robust surplus or not. Fiscal policy discipline is about whether you are going to defend that surplus. Fiscal indiscipline and economic irresponsibility equals a $22 billion raid on the surplus. So my appeal to those opposite, as each one of these items of legislation to do with the budget goes through the chamber, this House, and through that other place, the Senate, is to consider first and foremost your responsibility to the long-term economic interests of this nation. If you unleash a $22 billion raid on the surplus, which is your current stated plan, what it will do inevitably is drive up inflation and drive up interest rates and the impact on all Australians for that would be, in a word, disastrous.

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