Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs ) Share this | Hansard source

The cash rate would have to go up 10 times before interest rates could get back to where the Liberal Party left them. If you want proof regarding what interest rates look like now compared with what they looked like under the Liberal Party, you need go no further than my electorate. In my electorate four years ago, when the member for Goldstein was a minister, 60 families a month had their homes repossessed. That is something like three families a day losing their homes. Today, with interest rates lower, with cash rates lower, that number is in single figures—single figure numbers of people are having their homes repossessed, compared with the numbers when the member for Goldstein was a minister, when the Liberal Party was last in office. These are the facts.

The Australian economy is now stronger, compared with the rest of the world, than ever before. The strength of the Australian dollar is an indication of that. For the first time in our history we have a AAA credit rating from all three credit agencies—something the great Liberal Party never achieved. We are also a fairer country than we were four years ago. Four years ago more than a million workers had their wages or their entitlements cut by the Liberal Party's Work Choices legislation. We got rid of that. Four years ago pensioners received $148 less per fortnight than they do now. And four years ago there was no such thing as paid parental leave. The Leader of the Opposition said at the time that it would happen over his dead body. Well, it did happen, and now new mothers get 18 weeks of paid leave at the minimum wage. The next big reform to build a fairer country is the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which will provide lifetime care and support for the disabled—the sort of thing that only a Labor government would ever do.

All of this is because of the action this government has taken. That is the difference a Labor government makes—more jobs, a stronger economy and a fairer country. That is the story of the last four years. They would have been a very different four years if the Liberal Party had won the 2007 election. There are at least two things we can be certain of: they would not have got rid of Work Choices and they would not have taken the action we did to stop the impact of the global financial crisis. In other words, we would have had Work Choices and we would have had a recession. We would have had higher unemployment and lower wages. And the Liberal Party has the gall to come in here and have a debate about jobs.

If we had taken the action that the Liberal Party proposed, unemployment in Australia would now be more like it is in the United States. Unemployment in my electorate in Western Sydney would have been something like 15 or 16 per cent, and a generation of people across the country would have suffered. It would have taken us five or maybe 10 years to get unemployment back to where it is now.

It is worth remembering what the opposition leader said in his first major economic speech, a speech made a couple of years ago called 'Economic fundamentals'. This is what he said:

The economic stimulus wasn't necessary to strengthen Australia's economy at a time of global recession.

This is the man who expects the people of Australia to put him in charge of a $1.4 trillion economy, and in his first major speech on the economy he says that the stimulus was not necessary to protect jobs, the stimulus was not necessary to avoid going into recession, the stimulus was not necessary to protect Australia's economy.

This is not the party of Howard and Costello anymore. It is now led by a man whom Peter Costello says he would not trust on economic matters—and with good reason. One day they say they are going to deliver a surplus; the next day they say that cannot. Last year they promised tax cuts in their first term—we all remember that—and now they say that is not possible. A few months ago they admitted they had a $70 billion black hole in their costings; now they are denying it. It is all over the shop.

Mr Fletcher interjecting—

Mr Frydenberg interjecting—

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