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

As I was saying earlier, if you look at our forecasts, the forecasts of the IMF, the forecasts of the major private forecasters or of the OECD, what you see is an assessment of an Australian economy which, relative to all of our peers, is strong. We are growing at trend. We have unemployment at 4.9 per cent. We have a strong investment pipeline. We have our public finances in good nick. We have a AAA credit rating from the major agencies for the first time in our history, and yet those opposite have the hide to walk into this House and compare the Australian economy and our financial sector to Spain! To ask a question like that—to come in here and talk down our fundamentals—just shows how reckless those opposite have become in their assessment of the economy and how incompetent they are. They are not capable of being put in charge of a $1.4 trillion economy.

The fact is our forecast, the private forecasts, the IMF forecast and the OECD forecast all show that we can achieve this with a carbon price. We are achieving it with a carbon price because we have the guts to put in place the longer term decisions which secure our prosperity and ensure that we continue to have 21 years of continuous growth. Far-sighted Labor governments brought in superannuation, enterprise bargaining and competition policy and brought down the tariff wall. Just as measures in that vein have strengthened our economy, putting a carbon price in will strengthen our economy. We have the guts to face up to the challenges of the 21st century and to support our economy and our people, but those opposite are so reckless they just talk our economy down every day of the week. (Time expired)

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