Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

It sounds like all those opposite know the date when world global conditions are going to normalise. Do you know that date? Of course you don’t. So when growth returns to trend terms we will begin to move back to surplus. That is the responsible thing to do. Of course, moving back to surplus would not be helped by the approach of those opposite. We have had the Deputy Leader of the Opposition suggest that the way to get future growth and future tax revenue is to give even bigger tax cuts. She said that bigger, permanent tax cuts would increase revenue. We would suggest that is a recipe for higher and higher deficits and for higher and higher borrowings. That is exactly what it is. It is interesting to look at what the Leader of the Opposition has had to say about her position on this. This is what he had to say this morning on ABC Radio. Interviewer: ‘Can you explain Julie Bishop’s suggestion on the weekend that you can increase your tax revenue by cutting your tax take?’ Mr Turnbull: ‘Well, this is um, this is um, um, a point. It’s like a lot of economic, um, points. It has merit, but it isn’t right, you know, in an extreme fall.’

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