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) (14:10): I thank Senator Ghosh for that supplementary. We've had to manage a higher inflation environment than we would have liked since coming to government.

When we came to government, inflation was six per cent and rising. It peaked in the December of that first year. It's come down considerably since then, but it remains higher than we would like and has done so for longer than we would like.

We know that some of those pressures overseas are having an impact here, but we have been able to repair the budget. Significant budget repair—savings that we've brought to the budget, returning upward revisions to revenue, lowering debt and lowering the interest that we are paying on that debt have all been part of our approach, and we will continue to make those decisions because it's the right approach to get that budget in better shape.

When you see it against those international comparisons, you can see that the work we've done over the last four years has been the correct decisions. The PRESIDENT: Senator Ghosh, second supplementary?