David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer ) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his very informed and insightful contribution. I welcome the opportunity to respond to his question. He asked why it is important to return the budget to surplus. There are many reasons why it is important to return the budget to surplus. We as a government should be attempting to live within our means. When the economic circumstances are as strong as they are—and the economic circumstances in this country stand in stark contrast to the challenges that so many other economies are facing around the globe—these are precisely the times in which governments should be attempting to return their budgets to surplus.

What are the indicators to which I refer? When it comes to solid growth, the recent national accounts figures are a testament to the strength of growth in the Australian economy. I often hear those on the other side allege that the government has a preference for redistribution over wealth creation. The strongest endorsement of this government's commitment to wealth creation is the fact that this economy has grown faster in the period since the global financial crisis than any other major advanced economy. As a Labor government, we are committed to ensuring that there is fairness in the way in which taxation and transfer systems operate. But we also believe first and foremost that an economy must grow. Through growth and enlarging the pie, we are able to give more and more Australians the opportunity, with government support and assistance, to realise their potential so that they can make the contribution that our country requires and deserves from them. Our growth is very strong.

We also operate in a context in which unemployment is relatively low. An unemployment rate of 5.1 per cent is relatively low compared to those economies with which we would normally compare ourselves. If we have a look at those economies in Europe and economies such as the US and the UK, what we see is that our unemployment levels are considerably lower. All of those countries to which I have referred would give their right arms—they would give a limb—to have an unemployment rate with a five in front of it. And that is what we have in Australia. In fact, much of the discourse in this country at the moment is positioned around the challenges of confronting labour and skills shortages. And this is a government that has a plan to address those matters as well. We have strong growth and low unemployment, and we have contained inflation. Containing inflation is the best way that any government can attempt to fight the rising cost of living. Containing inflation is, by definition, a government's efforts to contain rising costs of living. With contained inflation, we see strong growth and low unemployment. At the same time, as the member for Fraser rightly pointed out, our net government debt is amongst the lowest of major advanced economies, peaking at 9.6 per cent this year. In fact, if you look at comparable nations and put them all in a basket and work out their average, our net debt peaks at about one-tenth of the average for those countries. We have low net debt, despite the carry-on and the protestations of the opposition. Whenever they have this discussion they firstly do not wish to acknowledge the international realities and the comparisons with other countries.

The other point that those opposite seem to forget is that we have been through the global financial crisis. They want to forget that because they are ashamed of their record of having voted against so many of those important measures that we as a government implemented to support jobs. I have mentioned all of these indicators, but the 800,000-plus jobs that we have created in our time in office are perhaps the strongest indication of this government's agenda. It is about growth. It is about jobs. We have delivered those jobs. Often we have had to do it without the support of those opposite, because they come into the parliament and vote against these measures. Then they want to pretend that there was not a significant international economic incident and a period of challenge that we have been through. We tackled it. As a result of having tackled it, hundreds of thousands of Australians had a job who would not have otherwise had a job.

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