Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

No, I am just about to quote what Jim from Joslin in South Australia says. It is from your state, Member for Sturt. He says: ‘I am nearly 49 years old and, while I earn a reasonable salary, homeownership was out of the question for many years. Thanks to the government and the doubling of the government’s grant for first home buyers, I am happy to say that I was able to buy the property that I rented for the last nine years.’ There you go. So, as far as this Australian citizen is concerned, he has benefited from an official cut in interest rates of 4¼ per cent. Remember, those opposite had 10 interest rate rises in a row. We have had a 4¼ per cent interest rate cut. The impact on average mortgages has been significant. Therefore, if you add to that the impact of the first home owners boost, you can see the overall benefit which has been delivered.

To add to the positive joy on the part of those opposite, I would also ask the member for North Sydney to give us his views on the balance of payments data today, because today we welcome positive data on the Australian balance of payments. Today we register a $5.1 billion trade surplus in the March quarter. It is Australia’s largest trade surplus on record. The current account deficit was $4.6 billion, or 1.5 per cent of GDP. We therefore have data today on what is happening in the building sector and we have data which has also been released recently in relation to other sectors of the economy, and what they point to is that this government is seeking to make a difference through its interventions on economic policy. The alternative government can sit back, do nothing, carp from the side, talk the economy down and be negative, or they can be positive and be out there building up the Australian economy. We will have, of course, the national accounts data. The markets are already predicting a negative quarter for Australia when the data is released here tomorrow.

This government is out there doing what it can to make a difference, to try and cushion Australia from the full impact of the global recession, to cushion jobs and small business from its impact, because our nation-building strategy for recovery is this: to support jobs, small business and apprenticeships today by building and investing in the nation-building infrastructure for tomorrow. That is our strategy. It is a positive strategy. I would suggest that those opposite stop their negative talking down of the economy and instead join with a positive program for Australia’s future.

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