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

The member for Goldstein is yelling out, 'No, you don't,' which means that he must have a plan to add to expenditure. If his plan is not to add to expenditure then he must identify offsetting savings.

The opposition is engaged in a fiction that this can only be done after the pre-election fiscal outlook is delivered. That is nonsense. Today, if the Leader of the Opposition is in possession of costed policies, he could start identifying the matching savings. If he does not do that transparently then Australians are entitled to conclude that that money will come in secret cuts in the way in which the Newman government has proceeded in Queensland. It is overseen by a commission of audit, but what it equals is cuts that cost jobs, cuts that destroy services, cuts that hit hospitals, cuts that hit schools.

So if the Leader of the Opposition has a new-found interest in budget matters—if you have your costed policies, and your shadow minister for finance says that you do—he should put out the matching savings and allow Australians to judge them.

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