Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. I refer to the Treasurer’s promises to make big cuts in net expenditure in his budget and to put downward pressure on inflation—promises so convincing that we were concerned that the Treasurer’s cuts might be too savage. Why is it then that the Treasurer’s own budget papers show that $15 billion of Howard government expenditure was cut, yet it was replaced with more than $30 billion of his own expenditure? Will the Treasurer now concede that there will be a net increase in expenditure in this high-taxing budget over the next four years and that all of his prebudget rhetoric was a complete con?

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