Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Why is it important to clearly set out policies in returning the budget to surplus and spread the benefits of the mining boom to all Australians?

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Banks for that very important question. It is important to bring the budget back to surplus because we should be coming back to surplus when growth is returning to trend and when our economic fundamentals are as strong as they are. As I was saying before, you build up surpluses when growth returns; you build up those surpluses for the good times.

But what you also have to do is make sure that you spread the benefits of prosperity right around your country, because not everybody is in the fast lane of the mining boom. But coming back to surplus was made much more difficult in this budget because of revenue write-downs. That is why we had to find $34 billion worth of savings. Really hard savings were found in this budget, because that is what you have got to do if you are serious about coming back to surplus. And by coming back to surplus you can give the Reserve Bank much more room and much more flexibility when it comes to interest rates, and you can build up that buffer for the future.

It is this discipline that has given us the triple-A credit rating from the three major rating agencies, something that Peter Costello and those opposite could never achieve at any time they were in government. You can only come back to surplus and you can only invest in the future if you have fully-costed policies.

There is a very big test for the Leader of the Opposition tonight: are we going to see fully costed policies or not? Is he going to explain how he is going to fund everything he claims to support in this budget? Is he going to be really clear about what he is going to do when it comes to the Family Tax Benefit and how that will be funded? Is he going to be really clear about how he is going to fill in the $70 billion budget bottom line hole that has been announced by the shadow Treasurer on morning TV? I think he ought to tell us that tonight, because this is the advice he gave our party back in 2003. He said this: 'Let the Leader of the Opposition tell us what he would do. Let him tell us exactly how he would pay for it.' We should be hearing that tonight, but I do not think that I will hold my breath waiting to hear it, because with or without Peter Costello the economic credentials of those opposite are wrecked.