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

We know those opposite could not find savings in recent budgets. We on this side of the House are up to the task of making the savings in budgets. We made them in the last budget, and we have made them in this year’s budget. We are entirely up to the mark in terms of charting a path back to surplus. Of course those on the other side of the House went on an unsustainable spending spree at the height of the mining boom and they spent like drunken sailors. We know what they did because the member for Higgins blew the whistle in John Howard’s biography, where he complained about the spending of the former Prime Minister and his own inability to stop it.

What we will see from this side of the House is fiscal discipline. We have put in place a spending cap of two per cent real when growth returns to trend. That is why our objectives are entirely reasonable and achievable. And it is a bit rich when those on that side of the House cannot front up and find any alternative savings in the budget.

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