Publication:	news.com.au
Date:	14 May 2009
Section:	National Breaking News

 

MALCOLM Turnbull's Budget in reply speech was marked by empty rhetoric and offered no solutions to reduce Government debt, Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner said. In his budget-in-reply address tonight, the Opposition Leader attacked the spiralling levels of debt forecast in the budget and run up by Labor with its "profligate" spending on two economic stimulus packages.

Mr Turnbull also said the Opposition would fight plans to cut the private health insurance rebate, but offered a trade-off. The Opposition is offering to replace the forecast $1.9 billion in savings that would come from paring back access to the private health insurance rebate with a 12.5 per cent increase in the tobacco excise - a tax of three cents per cigarette.