Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues) Share this | Hansard source

On the day when Australia’s unemployment has reached the extraordinary low level of 4.8 per cent, Labor brings on a matter of public importance that says that we do not have a modern, competitive economy. It accuses the government of failing to build a modern, competitive economy. The Australian economy is outperforming comparable economies around the world. The OECD, the international organisation that surveys all of the advanced economies of the world, recommended this year that Australia be the role model economy for other economies around the world.

In fact, the OECD report of this year confirmed an extremely strong endorsement of the government’s economic management and Australia’s economic performance. The survey noted:

Recent macroeconomic performance continues to be impressive ...

It went on to say:

Living standards have steadily improved—

this is in Australia—

since the beginning of the 1990s and now surpass all G7 countries except the United States.

We have one of the highest living standards in the world and an economy that the OECD says should be a role model for other countries around the world, yet Labor bring on today a matter of public importance—according to them—that says that the government has failed ‘to build a modern, competitive economy’. I have to ask: what parallel universe does the opposition inhabit? We are being lectured on a modern economy by the keynote speaker at the Marx Centenary Conference. The member for Jagajaga declares a war on capital, yet she can come into this House and suggest that the OECD has got it all wrong and that she, in fact, knows what a successful economy is all about.

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