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

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. I would have thought that here in 2009 at last the opposition could have said that the government’s stimulus strategy has succeeded in assisting Australia to remain out of recession, that at last the Leader of the Opposition could summon the courage to say that we have prevented hundreds of thousands of Australians from losing their jobs and that the government stimulus strategy has been remarkably successful by any global benchmark in preventing this economy from sliding into recession. These are the measurable achievements of what the government has done, in partnership with the business community and in partnership with the unions as well, in seeking to ensure that Australia came through this global economic crisis in the best possible repair, bearing in mind that we had so many economies around the world falling over one at a time. It is very difficult to know where the Leader of the Opposition actually stands on the question of stimulus. He draws attention, for example, to Access Economics today. The Access Economics report Business Outlook dated 19 October 2009 says, ‘Australia’s growth performance has been world beating.’ I do not seem to remember that being referred to in the quote by the Leader of the Opposition. Mr Richardson went on to say:

We didn’t dodge a bullet, we outran it … We sailed through the worst of the global crisis on a sea of stimulus—both our own and China’s.

That is what Access Economics have said. Access Economics also go on to say that there are still uncertainties out there in the global economy.

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