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

(—) (): As Senator Sinodinos also knows, a clear fiscal strategy is essential for good government. The alternative is a series of unfunded, unaffordable, undeliverable promises. We have seen the opposition conceding that they have to find $70 billion worth of cuts, but they do not want to tell the Australian people what they are. They do not want to do their costings. They give their costings to a catering company. A catering company is going to do their costings, and who can forget the election costings done by an accounting firm that was subsequently found to have breached professional standards. This is the standard of the coalition's budget numbers. What we know is it is more than untidy. It is $70 billion worth of cuts, the equivalent of every Medicare payment for four years. That is what they have to find; that is what they are hiding. (Time expired)