QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Senator GALLAGHER (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for Finance, Minister for the Public Service, Minister for Women, Minister for Government Services and Manager of Government Business in the Senate) (14:21): I thank Senator Dowling for the question. Welcome back and congratulations on the new member of the family. We can't wait to meet her when you bring her to Canberra.

In relation to the question, we have, in just the last week or so, seen that S&P Global have endorsed the government's responsible economic and fiscal management by reaffirming Australia's AAA credit rating. We remain one of only nine countries with a AAA sovereign credit rating from all three major rating agencies. Indeed, in that report—and I was hoping for a question about the S&P report from those opposite, but it wasn't the first question that they wanted to run with—S&P said 'Australia's fiscal performance is sound' and 'Australia has modest public debt by international standards'.

It specifically called out the government's ambitious tax and saving reforms for helping improve Australia's fiscal position over the next decade. We knew, once we inherited a budget mess from those opposite, who had doubled the debt before the pandemic hit and had also failed to address key areas of pressure on the government's budget, that we had to find savings in order to be able to meet some of those demands in the NDIS, early childhood education and care, health, aged care and defence.

Almost every area of government had a level of unmet need because those opposite, when in government, failed to do the policy thinking or actual delivery in any of those areas to make sure that our national interest was being protected. We have made the hard decisions in this budget alone, finding more savings than ever in previous updates. We've lowered the debt and we've lowered the interest on that debt to allow us to meet some of these other pressures.

(Time expired) The PRESIDENT: Senator Dowling, a first supplementary?