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

Andrews, that is right! They were up in the dining room having a few drinks while we were down here debating the future of employment in Australia. They only bothered to walk into the House, in a dishevelled state, when the vote was on. So much for their concern for employment!

Because we acted, because we are competent, because we are concerned about employment, because we understand economics and because we knew the threat that was coming from elsewhere in the world, where is Australia today? Australia today is one of the strongest advanced economies in the world. It is one of the strongest developed economies, which is celebrated by everybody on this side of the House. And what does it mean? It means low unemployment. What is absolutely critical to coping with the cost of living, to making ends meet and to educating your children and getting health care and housing is a decent job.

Where are we in Australia today? As I said, our economy is one of the strongest in the developed world. Our unemployment rate is 5.2 per cent, but it is in double digits right across Europe and just around nine-plus in the United States. We are creating jobs while the rest of the world has been losing jobs. In fact, we have created something like 280,000 jobs in the past year—something everyone in this House is going to be proud of for a long time. When the economic history of this country is written in the fullness of time it will say that the decision to put in place that stimulus package was absolutely critical. It is not just for jobs but also for business and for small business to keep their doors open. And it is still keeping the doors of tens of thousands of small businesses open right around this country in projects which are denigrated in this House day after day by those people who are sitting opposite.

They said it would not create a single job. I will never forget Malcolm Turnbull at the Press Club who said it would never create a job. They may have those views, but there is a lot of support for what Australia did, which is recognised as being first class. This is what a number of people had to say about it. The Governor of the Reserve Bank said stimulus had, ‘worked a treat’. The Governor of the Reserve Bank does not make those comments lightly. The OECD said:

… in no small part shielded businesses and citizens from the initial damaging impacts of the global recession.

The chief economist at Deutsche Bank said, ‘The absolute reliance of the Australian economy on policy stimulus since the second half of 2008 has been absolutely critical.’ The evidence is in. This government has a fine record in supporting employment, in supporting small business, in underpinning confidence and in understanding the nature of the threats that this country faced in the past and faces as we go forward. Of course, we have done all that and we have come out the other end with the lowest deficit and the lowest debt of any advanced economy.

I listened very closely to the Leader of the Opposition. He did not once in his critique of everything that had gone wrong even acknowledge that there has been a global financial crisis let alone a global recession. It simply passed him by. Well, I suppose it might if you lived where he lives. It may well have passed you by. But I tell you what, it did not pass by Australians the length and breadth of this country. They knew what the challenge was and they got behind it and so did so many of the employers in this country.

We on this side of the House understand the future challenges as well. We understand we are going to be in the Asian century. We understand that there are great opportunities coming for this country and we do need to reform our economy. We also understand that there are many people who are not doing as well even in an economy which is in as good shape as ours is compared to everybody else.

Not everybody is sharing in that and that is why we have continued with our tax cuts. The third lot are coming through next week. They are modest tax cuts but because we understand that many people around the kitchen table are doing it tough we introduced the education tax rebate. When you are trying to send your kids back to school it is a difficult time of year. It is a bit of extra cash to help you get by when all the bills come in after Christmas, when the kids are going back to school and you have to get the uniforms, and when the credit card bills are coming in. The education tax rebate is a big help for those people. Do we ever hear mentioned by those opposite what we have done in terms of child care? All of these things are vitally important because we understand cost-of-living pressures.

Then there is what we did with the age pension. It was something they could not find the whit to do in over 12 years despite the fact that it was raining gold bars at the time they were in government. They could not find time for pensioners below the poverty line. They did not care. They did not give a toss. They just simply do not understand the cost-of-living pressures facing families. That is why they are such extremists when it comes to Work Choices; they simply do not get it. (Time expired)

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