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

From the Leader of the Opposition we see another new height in creativity as he tries to re-gear his carbon tax campaign, which even members of his own backbench know is running out of puff. On the question of the budget surplus, which apparently the opposition stumbled upon for the first time yesterday, having not bothered really with the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook at all, I say to the Leader of the Opposition: if he genuinely cares about budget accounting then he may want to explain to the Australian people why, during the whole time he has been Leader of the Opposition, he has not put out one properly costed policy, not one policy properly checked by Treasury—not once, not ever.

If he wants to be taken seriously on the question of the budget surplus then there is no better time than today to say that the opposition will fully comply with the Charter of Budget Honesty; that, instead of producing dodgy figures as they did at the last election, with an $11 billion black hole in their centre, they will get their figures properly costed. We know that what is holding them back is the $70 billion plan for cuts to services that they are currently hiding—

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