Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I am more than a little amazed to get this question of all questions from the shadow Treasurer, who has admitted—even though he denies it now—that the opposition have a $70 billion costing problem, and their only way of fixing that is to slash health, slash education, slash support to families, because that is what Liberals do.

Unlike those opposite, who always have their eyes on slashing health—the Leader of the Opposition has form—and on slashing education—he has talked today about cutting funding to public schools—instead of taking that approach, we will continue to take the responsible approach which people have seen from us to date. As we have worked our way carefully through the government's budget, we have shown the ability to invest in the new instruments of fairness that Australians want, while bringing the budget to surplus. To give just one example, we found room in the federal government's budget for a billion dollars for the National Disability Insurance Scheme launch site. I take it from the shadow Treasurer's question that the opposition is now out and proud and opposed to the NDIS. Finally, they have come out and done that. We make the hard decisions to get these things done. You sit there with figures that will not add up and secret plans to cut health and education and support for families.

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