You can tell from that question that nothing makes the shadow treasurer happier than the prospect of an interest rate rise. You can tell from his question that that is the case. When it comes to responsible economic management, I would stack up our record on managing the budget against their record any day. Their last budget didn't have any savings in it. We've had savings in all eight of our budgets and budget updates. We have had eight in a row—eight budgets and budget updates with every single one of them having a budget saving in it. Their last budget didn't have any savings in it. That's the first point.

The second point is that, in our last two budget updates, the net policy decisions have been positive rather than negative, not something that those opposite were able to manage—$180 billion in savings, including more than $60 billion in savings in our last budget, which is a record for the Commonwealth. That goes to our responsible approach to managing the budget. The reason that their argument about spending and inflation, like the Liberal Party itself, is falling down all around them is that, even after the half-baked so-called announcements of savings that they made on Monday, they still have $110 billion of unfunded commitments just since the election. So, by their own logic, the policies that they have announced would mean $110 billion in bigger deficits and, by their logic, higher inflation and higher interest rates.

On the number that the shadow treasurer refers to, the reason they sometimes use these numbers is that they are implying that some of the spending in the budget, which is the indexation of the age pension and other pensions—that somehow they wouldn't see the indexation of the pension. So let every pensioner in this country know that when they try to make up the difference, the $110 billion that they have committed to, they don't support the indexation of pensions and payments in the budget. They've got a $110 billion hole in their budget. They cannot fill it without going after Medicare again or without going after pensions and payments again, because that's how they roll. If their argument is that bigger deficits mean higher inflation, then they have to explain why they've got $110 billion extra bigger deficits in their proposals that they put before the Australian people.