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

of a price for iron ore of more than $120 a tonne. We reduced that down to just over $90 a tonne in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook and in the budget. What did Labor say? They said that we were too pessimistic and that we were purposely trying to reduce the level of revenue in order to make the numbers look worse. Guess what? Right now, the iron ore price is hovering at about $63 a tonne. The truth is that whether Labor and the Greens party are in government or we are in government, that would have been the same.

What we do know is that, on the spending side, under Labor things would be so much worse. On the spending side, the Labor Party is opposing $28 billion in savings. Today, the Labor leader, Mr Shorten, has again locked Labor into another $15 billion in additional spending. Whatever the situation in the budget and in MYEFO, under Labor it would be $43 billion worse than under the coalition. (Time expired)