Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Braddon for his question. It becomes readily apparent day after day in this House that the opposition do not think that the government should act at all to deal with the global financial crisis. They think that nothing should be done to protect jobs, to protect families and to protect households. They think nothing should be done. This government will act, and it will act in a coordinated way and it will act with international governments that absolutely understand the need to act.

The Leader of the Opposition was asking before about forecasts from the IMF and other organisations. This is what the OECD said this week:

Against the backdrop of a deep economic downturn, additional macroeconomic stimulus is needed.

Fiscal policy stimulus over and above the support provided through automatic stabilisers has an important role to play. Governments around the world recognise that. They recognise that it is important that fiscal policy, fiscal stimulus, works in tandem with monetary policy or monetary stimulus in the economy. That could not be more important than at a time like now when there is a dramatic slowdown occurring in the international economy. The US and the UK are about to enter recession, the Euro zone and Japan are in recession and countries we trade with are now moving into recession. All of that is the case for substantial government action—substantial government action which must be taken.

The government’s position is supported widely by respected economists. Indeed, I do not think there is a respected economist in the country who agrees with the federal opposition at the moment—not one. Those over there think the global financial crisis is simply overhyped. That is what the Leader of the Opposition said. That is an excuse for the Liberal Party to fail to stand up for jobs, families and business. Let us just go through some of the comments from respected economists. Westpac chief economist, Bill Evans, said:

We’ve already seen a very laudable $10 billion stimulus coming from the government, but we need to see more of that, and we need to certainly accept that there’s nothing wrong, in fact it’s responsible to have a deficit in this environment.

The Prime Minister before referred to the Governor of the Reserve Bank, who said some weeks ago:

If we see governments at state level or federal level pull back from worthwhile things because of the budget balance deteriorating, which it’s going to do in this environment, that’s not stabilising, that’s potentially destabilising.

That is the environment that we are in. Jobs are threatened and growth is threatened by what is going on internationally, but the Liberal Party will never put jobs first. Whether it is Work Choices or the global financial crisis, Mr Turnbull’s solution is to do nothing—absolutely nothing—to protect jobs and nothing to protect families.

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