Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

It is important to recall how we got here. After the election, all parties signed up to the principle of a Parliamentary Budget Office. We then had a parliamentary comm­ittee that reported unanimously, including that the Charter of Budget Honesty frame­work would be retained. That report was supported across the parliament. Mr Hockey himself called for the PBO to be set up. But Mr Hockey has realised that he has a $70 billion black hole, so he wants to try to hide it, because he cannot fix it. So he is walking away from the Parliamentary Budget Office and walking away from the Charter of Budget Honesty because he has realised he cannot fix the black hole. What a disgrace from a party that used to have some fiscal and economic credibility. It used to be a par­ty that believed in budget honesty. It is now a party that is all about budget dishonesty.