Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

To the shadow Treasurer, I refer him to today's employment figures and the creation of 32,000 jobs. I refer him to the Leader of the Opposition's reckless fear campaign, which the shadow Treasurer is now trying to reinterpret because the shadow Treasurer must know the kind of nonsense that was spouted by the Leader of the Opposition. What the opposition went round saying for months and months and months was that the economy would basically halt the day carbon pricing came into effect, and that it would be a wrecking ball through our economy. Terminology like 'a permanent depression' was used. Whyalla was going to be wiped off the map.

Let us be very, very clear here: what the Leader of the Opposition effectively predicted was the loss of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of jobs. That was the nature of his fear campaign. The coal industry—not to exist anymore. The town of Whyalla—gone. All manufacturing—gone. A wrecking ball through the economy; a permanent depression. These were the predictions.

What has in fact happened—and the shadow Treasurer really knows this, but feels the need to fall in line with this reckless campaign—is that we have continued to see jobs growth. We have continued to see jobs growth at a time of volatility continuing in the global economy.

I would refer the shadow Treasurer to the work of the IMF. He might hang his head about that—needing to look at the work of the IMF—but it records, of course, the circumstances of the global economy and some of the things that are impacting on global growth rates. It also records the circumstances of the Australian economy, where we continue to see growth at trend, where we continue to see jobs created, and where we continue to see low unemployment rates. When you look around the world, who would you change with? America? No—higher than us. The UK? No—higher than us. Parts of Europe with unemployment rates at 20 per cent or 25 per cent? Here, in the Australian economy: low unemployment; low inflation; a triple-A credit rating from all three major credit ratings agencies—something never achieved by the Howard government in office.

The opposition should stop talking the Australian economy down. Australians are proud of the economy we have created. We have done it together—employers, employees, unions and the government, working in partnership in the worst economic downturn since the great recession of the late 1920s, and we have come through, building jobs, and we will continue to build for the future through our clean energy package and build jobs at the same time.

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