Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Financial Services, Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Hansard source

The best information that Treasury has available is the information in the budget papers. The published budget papers represent the Treasury’s best estimate, but Treasury do not necessarily take an optimistic view on the terms of trade or on profit levels. They use their best estimate of what those parameters will be. They do that in a fashion which is not overly optimistic or, to use a different term, which is conservative. But the figures that have been published in the budget papers are the Treasury’s best estimate of what the revenue will be, as projections published in the budget papers are the Treasury’s best estimate of all economic parameters and all revenue parameters for every tax, for all sorts of revenue, for all expenditure and for the broader economic figures which apply throughout the budget.

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