Response to the reactions to the Budget reply

8. "The government promised a surplus over the cycle but this isn't a cycle – it's a spiral, deeper and deeper into debt ..."

Not really. Paul Keating restructured Australia's economy and brought the accounts back into surplus. Keating delivered three. This allowed Peter Costello then to deliver another nine. But who delivered surpluses prior to Keating?

Answer: Arthur Fadden in the early Menzies years. Cycles can be 50 years or more. Australia is still in the low deficit/surplus phase.

9. "But thanks to Labor's poor management over five years, there is now a budget emergency."

No, there isn't. According to Moody's, "The size of the deficits is such that the gross debt of the Commonwealth government will rise only slightly from its currently estimated 19.3% of GDP to a peak of 20.6% in 2014-15. On a net basis, the peak will be 11.4% of GDP, and the government's long-term forecasts have this figure falling to zero early in the next decade."

10. "The Prime Minister guaranteed there would be no carbon tax – but there is."

A bit rich from the man who told the Greens and Independents he would have done precisely the same as the PM to negotiate an emissions reduction outcome through a hung parliament. Especially from one who has placed firmly on the record that the best strategy is "a simple carbon tax".

11. "So with a change of government, your weekly and fortnightly budgets will be under less pressure as electricity prices fall and gas prices fall and the carbon tax no longer cascades through our economy."

Inflation since the carbon tax was introduced has been lower than during the Rudd/Gillard period before the carbon tax was introduced and below the average rate for the Howard Government.

And finally:

12. Regarding "proper cabinet process", Mr Abbott suggests "That's how Bob Hawke and John Howard ran their governments but that's not how government is run now, as the four former ministers now sitting on the backbench have testified."

This was a barbed reference to ministers who departed after internal party ructions. [Kevin Rudd, Simon Crean, Chris Bowen and Martin Ferguson].