Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

As the chamber will be aware, there were a range of savings measures which the government announced recently. We did so because we are a government that are conscious of the need for fiscal restraint. As the Leader of the Government in the Senate outlined in answer to an earlier question and as the Australian people know, what we have been bequeathed, and what we have been bequeathed by those opposite, is the inflation genie. One of the ways in which we have to respond is to ensure that we exercise appropriate fiscal restraint.