House debates Questions without Notice: Additional Answers
Budget
Joe Hockey North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer
3:11 pm
I want to deal with a policy issue that was asked of me by the honourable member for Reid. The question was: why are we focusing on reducing the debt and deficit? I can inform the House that Fitch Ratings, the credit rating agency, have just released a statement to say, 'Aussie budget enhances long-term sovereign risk profile.' They say:
… it is positive for Australia's long-term sovereign risk profile that the planned fiscal consolidation will be driven primarily by structural reforms to spending.
Mr Tony Burke Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance
I rise on a point of order. In terms of the forms of the House, if the information was not available at the time that the answer was given it cannot be used to add to the answer later. This could properly be a ministerial statement, but this is not the form of the House to use.
Joe Hockey North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer
3:12 pm
I will just conclude the quote.
These include increasing the pension retirement age to 70 by 2035, indexing pensions to CPI as opposed to wage growth, increasing petrol excise taxes, introducing medical co-payments, and tightening the requirements for unemployment and family tax benefits.
I table that.