Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Braddon for his question. Those opposite, who lay claim to economic credibility, should take a long, hard look at this report, the latest International Monetary Fund report on Australia’s economic performance. The International Monetary Fund strongly endorses the government’s economic strategy and importantly has commended the government on its long-term reform agenda. The IMF report says the directors considered that:

… if implemented fully, the broad reform agenda should enhance the flexibility of the economy and lift productivity and labor force participation.

The report goes on to say:

Successful implementation of further reforms would enhance the economy’s flexibility, lift productivity—

hear, hear!—

and foster labor force participation. Reform is essential to take full advantage of the mining boom that is centered on Queensland and Western Australia, that will require capital and labor to move from other states.

The Rudd government is helping to create the conditions for sustained, low-inflationary economic growth. The government is pursuing an ambitious long-term reform agenda aimed at restarting productivity growth. This follows a decade of squandered opportunity when productivity growth after the boom times of the 1990s slipped away until, last year, as mentioned by the Minister for Trade, it not just had fallen to a low level, not just had slowed but had stopped. It had ground to a complete halt. It was zero.

The government is investing in an education revolution to restart productivity growth. We are working, through the Council of Australian Governments, to reduce regulation in 27 different areas of reform. We are doing this to advance Australia towards a seamless national economy as called for by the Business Council of Australia. As the IMF says, this government’s reform agenda will help lift productivity growth, because today’s productivity growth is tomorrow’s prosperity. I note that the newly elected Leader of the Opposition said, on 19 September, just the other day:

There is a need for bipartisanship and a constructive approach to the economy.

I invite the opposition leader to support the Rudd government’s program of long-term economic reform as endorsed today by the International Monetary Fund.

See this speech in context