Dr CHALMERS (Rankin - Treasurer) (14:33):  I knew that the mighty Broncos were a chance on Sunday when the member for Hunter confidently tipped the Melbourne Storm! I thank him for that, and I thank him for the question. Responsible economic management is a defining feature of this Labor government. You can see that in the final budget outcome, which was released just last week. In dollar terms, our government has presided over the biggest ever positive improvement in the budget in a single parliamentary term. In just three years we've overseen a $209 billion improvement in the budget bottom line. We turned two very big Liberal deficits into two substantial Labor surpluses in our first two years and, in our third year, we substantially reduced the deficit as well so that it's now a fifth of what we inherited from those opposite, around a third of what we forecast before the election. As a consequence of that, debt is now $188 billion lower in the year just finished than what we inherited from those opposite. That means we'll be paying something like $60 billion less interest over the course of the next decade or so.

We have achieved this because we have found savings, shown restraint, banked provisions to revenue, kept unemployment low and got real wages growing again in our economy. As a result of our approach and our policies, international ratings agency Standard and Poor's just last week reaffirmed Australia's AAA credit rating.

Labor's responsible economic management is in stark contrast to the mess that we inherited from those opposite. They promised to deliver a surplus every single year and only delivered nine straight deficits. They doubled the debt before COVID. They had deficits, they had debt ratcheting up and they were on track to exceed a $1 trillion in debt not too long after the 2022 election. They spent most of the revenue upgrade. They had no savings in their last budget. I think most damningly they took to the last election a policy of higher taxes, lower wages, bigger deficits and more debt. We have spent three years cleaning up the mess that we inherited from them.

This government is guided by the national economic interest as we go about making the budget more sustainable. Those opposite are guided by the internal politics of the Liberal Party. Whoever prevails in that unedifying spat between the far right and the even farther right on that side of the House, it's already clear: they haven't changed a bit and they haven't learned a thing. If anything, they are more divisive and more divided than ever and they still have no economic credibility whatsoever. Their record in government, and now their record in opposition, makes that clear.