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

The opposition’s response to the budget has been all over the place. Their position changes virtually on a daily basis. They are sniping at most of the major initiatives but relentlessly avoiding taking responsibility for the wider picture and relentlessly avoiding taking any clear position on the inflation problem and what the fiscal settings in this nation should be. This is the core question they have to answer—indeed, it is the core question the member for Higgins should be asked to answer: what fiscal settings would be appropriate for dealing with the inflation problem?

The government will not be diverted from our task of putting downward pressure on inflation and interest rates. We intend to do everything necessary and everything possible to preserve the integrity of the surplus and to ensure we have a strict, responsible budget position. Unlike the opposition, who appear not to know what specials in supermarkets are, we understand the pressures that ordinary families in this country are under, we understand the rising prices that they are having to pay and we understand the importance of getting inflation under control. The opposition are putting this at risk—they are putting the government’s efforts to put downward pressure on inflation and get the inflation problem under control at risk by their actions in the Senate. They should think again. They should act responsibly in the interests of working people in this country.

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