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February 29th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda Returning the budget to surplus will be “challenging” but Finance Minister Penny Wong believes it is the right thing in the current economic climate.
The federal government has forecast a $1.5 billion surplus in 2012/13 after an expected $37.1 billion deficit in the current financial year that ends on June 30.
“We have a plan to bring the budget back to surplus, we are determined to do that and we will,” Senator Wong told Sky News on Wednesday.
“It will be challenging, I think everybody knows that.”
But she said it is the right call given that the economy continues to grow at trend, and particularly after the strong result in the latest employment figures.
The unemployment rate was 5.1 per cent in January, down from 5.2 per cent in December.
The government’s mid-year budget review released in November predicted an jobless rate of 5.5 per cent by mid-year.
Meanwhile, a verbal stoush erupted over the opposition’s apparent stance over the new parliamentary budget office (PBO), which Treasurer Wayne Swan has described as an “economic circus”.
A spokesman for the treasurer accused the opposition of having a “trio of positions” on the PBO after comments by Liberal backbencher Steven Ciobo about election costings.
“The Liberals are now saying they’ll submit all their policies to the Parliamentary Budget Office, despite the shadow treasurer (Joe Hockey) ruling this out and the Opposition Leader (Tony Abbott) saying they’ll pick and choose which policies they’ll put up for scrutiny,” he said.
But Mr Ciobo later said that in an interview with Sky News he was in fact pointing out that the PBO had been an initiative of the previous coalition government, not that the opposition would be putting its policies through it.
“Wayne Swan and Labor know their budget is in bad shape, that’s why they’re making up commitments and trying to focus on the opposition,” he told AAP.
“All the coalition’s policies will be revealed and costed ahead of the next election.”
Mr Hockey also denied saying he would never send policies to the PBO for costing.
“However, we said we would not submit final election costings to PBO because the government is refusing to have the PBO operate on a confidential basis as it does outside of the election period,” Mr Hockey told AAP.
“Before the election call we will be submitting stuff.”
As it is, Mr Hockey said the PBO doesn’t even exist at the moment as officers have yet to be appointed, even though money was set aside in the last budget.
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