Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Deputy Speaker for his encouragement of his colleagues to support my presentation, because we are all about promoting prosperity and greater economic engagement. That is precisely what APEC does and it is precisely what the Prime Minister will be doing when he chairs APEC and talks about the success of Australia’s policies in plugging into the region and the world.

Many countries coming here will be very envious of the 4.3 per cent unemployment in our country. They will be very envious of the zero government debt that we have, and I am sure they will be seeking to learn as much as they can about Australia’s national economic success story over the last decade. I am sure that the Prime Minister will be talking to them about how important Australia’s success in trade has been in that endeavour. Australia does punch well above its weight, and I hope that every shadow minister and every other Labor member will talk about how significant Australia has been in the last decade and how important it has been in punching above its weight. I hope that they go back to their electorates and promote Australia, instead of talking Australia down—as was done in a shadow minister’s blurb, which he ended up sending to my electorate instead of to his own constituents. I found that very interesting in terms of the competence of the shadow minister in that case.

Australia’s population is 0.3 per cent of one per cent of the global population, yet our economy totals over $1.1 trillion, making Australia the 13th largest economy in the world. That is some 50 per cent larger than it was in 1996. In 10 short years, we have grown some 50 per cent and are punching well above our weight and our size. Put in comparative terms, our population is around 1.5 per cent of China’s, but our per capita GDP is four times as much. We can and should be very proud of this picture of Australia. Indeed, as the OECD says, Australia is now ranked eighth in the OECD’s standard of living rankings, up from 13th in 1996, and it is third out of 177 countries on the 2006 United Nations Human Development Index, which takes into account things like achievements in education, GDP growth and life expectancy.

Unfortunately, my time to speak is coming to an end. I did want to talk about—

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