Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Banks for his question. I acknowledge again the excellent work he has been doing as the chair of the House Standing Committee on Economics, and particularly in ensuring that the policies that the Prime Minister and I have been working on with the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services to ensure that banks are accountable in this country and the reforms we are putting in place for banks in this country will mean that Australians will be able to get a better deal at the end of the day. I thank him and his committee for their work.

The government is delivering on our plan to restore the budget to balance. Once again we have seen, just like we did last year, some $22 billion of budget improvement measures that we were able to implement after the election throughout the course of the back half of last year. Again, this week we have seen an omnibus bill that was designed to ensure that we could get the growth in welfare spending under control, something that taxpayer Australians desperately want to see. Eight out of 10 taxpayers go to work every day just to pay for the welfare bill in this country through their personal income tax—eight out of 10! Our bill was designed to ensure that we are going to rein in the growth in that welfare expenditure—an important task for the government. With no help from those opposite, no help from the Labor Party, who want to see taxpayers pay higher bills for welfare in this country—

Mr Burke interjecting—

On the interjection from the member opposite, I remind him I am talking about the omnibus bill which is being considered in this chamber right now.

Ms Macklin interjecting—

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