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

The reason it is important to detail the savings is to be upfront with the Australian people and the markets about how the path to surplus has been achieved. We have had to make difficult decisions as a government as a result of the revenue write-downs which have occurred; some $150 billion has been written off government revenues since the crisis. Delivering surpluses when there is less tax revenue obviously means that a government has to make substantial savings to pay for new initiatives. We have done so. These are responsible decisions which return the budget to surplus for this coming year and for each year after that. I invite the opposition, if they are so keen on surplus budgets, to demonstrate to the Australian people how they would return the budget to surplus. It is quite clear that under Mr Abbott they are incapable of actually coming to agreement on any difficult decision.