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

Thank you, Mr President. I will just ignore that outburst from the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. Clearly, she still does not understand how budget papers work. No wonder that she was the worst finance minister in the history of the Commonwealth! Guess what? If she would have looked closely at what was announced yesterday she would have actually understood that splitting the bills has absolutely no impact on the budget position. She knows exactly that the government remains committed to the savings that are reflected in the budget, and that as far as the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy is concerned the money is already in the budget.

I do not know which part of that Senator Wong does not understand but, given that she does not understand it, it is no wonder that she created such a mess of our public finances in her period in government.