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

When Labor were budgeting and there were iron ore prices of $180, what they did in their budget was assume those good times and those resources prices would be there forever. And, on the basis of that, the Treasurer under Labor came to this dispatch box and said:

The four years of surpluses I announce tonight …

The difference between how Labor budgets and how Liberals budget is that, when times are good, we don't always assume they will be that way globally. We actually factor that in, with conservative forecasts. That is why in the last three years we have seen an improvement on the original budget outcome. Because of the conservative estimates that have been built into the budget, we have overachieved each and every year. The reason we do that is we do not take the global environment for granted. When the global environment takes a downturn, that equally has an impact, but in our budget we have been taking that prospect into account for many years. That was the budget we took to the election and that is the budget that is in surplus now.

When times are better, those opposite think they will go on forever, and you can never assume things will go on well forever under the Labor Party, because they know how to wreck the economy, and wreck the budget with reckless spending and policies of panic and crisis. We will take a calm, stable, methodical and measured approach to the nation's finances to ensure we can deliver now the essential services people rely on and to ensure we can be there to provide the resilience for those services in the future.

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