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

As I said, the debt is less than it would have been under Labor. Let me just explain to the chamber the little dishonest trick that Labor used in their budget to hide the true budget numbers. They imposed an assumption on their spending forecast that spending over the medium term would not go up by more than two per cent above inflation at the same time as making policy decisions that were ramping up spending by 3.7 per cent, year on year, above inflation—nearly double, year on year. Everybody knows that—

Senator Wong interjecting—

If you want to look at it, look at the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook in the lead-up to the 2013 election. The Treasury and Finance secretaries were so embarrassed by what Labor did in government that they felt the need to spell it out. They felt the need to spell it out because Labor were trying to fool the Australian people, suggesting that they would control spending without telling anyone where savings would come from. This government had to do the hard yards to fix up your mess, as we always do.