Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction) | Hansard source

Absolutely: I'm finding all the reasons why this must go to the economics committee. We even asked the Treasurer—and the Treasurer has got enormous power, given this budget, to be, basically, able to use his own pen to decide how much of a tax cut they're going to give Australians. Two hundred and fifty dollars is what the budget papers say. But, if he wants, the Treasurer can drop that figure down to zero—zilch; nothing. So this is why we need the economics committee to look at this. They have to look at this, because, if the government can't give a simple answer to the question of whether the Treasurer can take your tax cut away from you—from $250 down to zero—then, seriously, how can we trust the government on anything?

We've seen already that we can't trust them, sadly. So we have to make sure that the economics committee can fully look at this. We haven't even started yet on how you define a new dwelling. We asked that question of the minister today. And do you think the minister had any clue on how to define a new dwelling or not? No, she didn't. And this is quite complicated. If you don't know the answer to these simple questions then you have to be able to have them properly interrogated, and that is what we are seeking to do.

It is now three weeks—three weeks—after the budget was delivered, and we still do not know the answer to these questions and many, many more. What is now absolutely foolproof is that the government and the Treasurer and the Prime Minister made this budget up on the run.

See this speech in context