Senator WONG (South Australia—Minister for Finance and Deregulation) (14:00): I welcome a question from Senator Brandis on the economy. As the Senate would know, the government has just delivered a midyear budget update in which we took quite many billions of dollars worth of savings to return the budget to surplus. Of course we stand by that forecast, and we are on track to deliver it. The fact that we took the sorts of savings that we did at this time, at a time when we saw some $22 billion written down in terms of revenue to government—something which those opposite may not understand; that we are a lower taxing government than the Howard government— Senator Abetz: Because you're borrowing, that's why. Senator WONG: and we took $16.4 billion—Senator Abetz says it is because we are borrowing. It is because less tax is being generated, senator. It is because less tax is being paid to the government. If you would like to look at the tax-to-GDP ratio, it is 23.7 per cent for your government and just over 22 per cent for our government in this year. What is occurring is that for various reasons—including the thing they keep forgetting, which is the worst global downturn since the Great Depression—we are seeing less tax being paid to the federal government under this government than we saw under the Howard government. In fact, in these circumstances the government took some $16.4 billion worth of savings in the MYEFO. That adds to more than $130 billion of savings over five budgets. That level of savings demonstrates the commitment that this government has to fiscal discipline at a time when we see a softening in the global economy, something that those opposite might like to simply brush over.