Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

What a pleasure it is to be able to speak to this latest chapter in the story of the economic management of this country by this government and talk about matters of weight and importance to this country instead of the muck that we have been wallowing in in the last two days in the other chamber. The story so far is a great one indeed. This government has navigated the worst economic crisis in our history since the Great Depression. It has managed the exit from two wars that we inherited from the coalition, the worst floods and fires in our history, the collapse of ABC Learning, the swine and equine flu challenges and all to great success, so what we see at this point in time is the greatest alignment of macroeconomic indicators in the country's history, an alignment that was never seen under the coalition, never matched by the coalition and, in many cases, not matched in Australia's history.

What are they? We now have interest rates of 3.75 per cent, never matched by the coalition. Since the election of this government, if you have a $300,000 mortgage you will be saving $3,000 a year on that. Inflation is around 1.6 per cent and unemployment is 4.9 per cent. I would like to indicate that in Eden-Monaro, the unemployment rate is in fact 2.8 per cent, which is a wonderful achievement that we have pulled together to achieve as a team effort. We have also delivered record terms of trade and record investment. There is a $490 billion investment pipeline in the wake of claims by the coalition that our mineral resources rent tax and other measures would dissuade investment. These are record levels of investment, so it gives the lie to those claims.

We also see, for the first time in Australian history, the major credit agencies—Fitch, Moody's, S&P—rating us at AAA for the first time in our history. This was never achieved by the coalition. Our very, very low levels of debt compared to the international community and all comparable developed countries make us the envy of those countries at 9.6 per cent. If you look at some of the historic figures, during the First World War it was 50 per cent of GDP and 140 per cent of GDP in the Second World War. Many times in our history it has been around the eight, nine or 10 per cent mark. We are on track with our sound fiscal policies and economic management to amortise that debt to bring it down to 0.5 per cent in due course.

This magnificent record of achievement, an unparalleled record of achievement, is a tremendous narrative. It is also part of how this government is achieving the economic reform so necessary for the future of this country—those dead years, Rip Van Winkle years wasted under the Howard government with the boom when we were not investing in the very key measures that were necessary to avoid the impacts and distortions of the mining boom which can create the so-called Dutch disease effect. The things that needed to be done then and were not done are being done now: the investment in infrastructure, the investment in innovation, the investment in skills. A good example of that in my own area is three new trade training centres in Eden, Bombala and Bega; the expansion of the facilities of the Queanbeyan TAFE; and the investment of $3 million in the Wollongong Access Centre facilities in Batemans Bay, offering new vocational and trade training opportunities to the kids in our region. This is contributing in itself to the new apprenticeship levels and jobs in the area that has got us down to that 2.8 per cent unemployment level. We are also taking the benefit from the massive investment in infrastructure and projects.

What also amazes me is that we hear a lot from some members of the coalition who claim to represent rural and regional Australia, but all we saw during their years was the vacation of services from rural and regional areas. They would look at a country school, and what would they do? They would give it a flagpole. My area is a great example of what is happening in rural and regional Australia: $100 million has gone into the 70 schools in my region. When I travel around the 70 schools the parents, the teachers and the kids have nothing but praise for what this transformation of our educational landscape has delivered.

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