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

The reason the previous government made a complete mess of the budget is that they kept walking the countryside making promises left, right and centre without showing how it was going to be paid for, including for small business. The most cruel thing you can do is make a promise that costs money and imposes cost burdens on the budget, without actually showing how you are going to pay for it. We had this tax that was supposed to raise $4 billion in year one. Guess what? It raised 95 per cent less than that, and the five per cent it raised is being refunded—