Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I can confirm that we inherited a budget in a mess from the Labor Party. And not only did we inherit a budget that was in a mess, we inherited a budget that was deteriorating at a rapid rate as a result of the bad decisions that were made by the former government. Furthermore, yes, we have been forced to make a series of decisions to fix the bad decisions, to fix the messes created by the Labor Party. As the Treasurer has said, every time we open another cupboard we find some more spiders that we have got to clean out. Every time we open another drawer there are some more Labor spiders that need to be sorted out. This government of course is committed to repair the budget mess that we have inherited from the Labor Party. I have to say, Senator Wong, you are very courageous, may I say, to bring up a question about the state of the budget when you are the minister—

Opposition senators: You!

Senator Wong was the minister who presided over a budget blow-out of more than $107 billion in the three years that she was the minister for finance— (Time expired)