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

I thank the member for Hasluck for her question. Today we have had the Westpac-Melbourne Institute consumer sentiment index, and today’s data shows that consumer confidence fell modestly in February—down 2.6 per cent from the previous month. Westpac’s chief economist, Bill Evans, noted that ‘adverse developments in the global economy’ are likely to have weighed on sentiment. Notwithstanding this modest fall, we are encouraged that consumer confidence remains high and is still 36.4 per cent higher than it was a year ago. The data today shows that, while we can be confident in Australia’s economic recovery, we have no cause for complacency.

Of course, maintaining confidence in recovery is very important. It is important that our political leaders work hard to build confidence in our economy and not be out there talking down the economy. We still have a fragile global economy, and it is important that political leaders do not make risky and irresponsible statements that could jeopardise our recovery and put Australian jobs at risk. Today we have seen some more of the serial sloppiness from the economic team on the other side. In fact, they have had a shocker of a week—an absolute shocker. Today, the shadow Treasurer had to slap down the shadow finance minister. But also we have seen the risky behaviour of the shadow Treasurer, rushing out to claim that interest rates are on the rise and to misrepresent the statements of the Reserve Bank. The shadow Treasurer went out last night, all guns blazing, claiming there had been a speech by the Governor of the Reserve Bank that claimed that rates were going up because of the government’s fiscal policy. This was a complete misrepresentation last night by the shadow Treasurer, because what does this paper say? On page 1 it says this:

For local readers, we emphasise that the paper is not intended to provide any particular message about current issues for monetary policy in Australia.

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