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

We have a proven track record of putting in place fiscal settings which support jobs and growth in our economy—and nothing could be more important to everyone on this side of the House than what we have done to support jobs and growth in our economy over the past five years. When the global financial crisis and the global recession threatened, we put in place a substantial response to support jobs and to support small business in our community. As a consequence we did not experience a recession, as did just about every other developed economy in the world. The consequence of that has been that our economy is stronger than just about any other developed economy in the world. We are expected to grow faster this year and next than other major developed economy.

When we put that stimulus in place we also outlined fiscal rules to bring our budget back to surplus—and, since that time, that is precisely what we have been doing. We have put in place a set of fiscal rules to bring us back to surplus. And because there has been $160 billion in revenue write-downs, we have had to put in place $150 billion worth of savings in our budget.

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