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

I thank the shadow Treasurer for his question. This is a serious issue and it deserves a very serious and considered answer because we are in the middle of a global recession which is impacting severely on this country. We have seen European growth contract by 1.5 per cent, we have seen Japan contract by 3.3 per cent in the December quarter and we have seen Taiwan, in recent days, contract by something like six per cent. We have seen the impact of this on the national budget to the tune of something like $115 billion since the last budget, we have also seen the fact that the stock market has lost something like $600 billion in value and, of course, we have seen the impact on the super accounts of Australians. What we are now seeing in Queensland, a resource rich state, is the impact of the global recession and, most particularly, the impact that flows through to this country, including our resource rich states, of the halving of growth in China.

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