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

I thank the member for Petrie for that very important question, because there has been a very strong endorsement of the resilience of the Australian economy by the IMF in their annual report—a very comprehensive report on the resilience of the Australian economy. I would just like to quote a few things that the IMF had to say about our economy. They said there was a well-coordinated response to the global financial crisis, and they went on to say:

Five years on, both the economy and the financial sector continue to outperform most of their peers.

The IMF then went on to say, in praising the adept handling of the fallout from the global financial crisis:

… prudent economic management, and strong supervision of the financial sector, has kept Australia on the dwindling list of AAA rated countries.

So what the IMF is saying is that, unlike the rest of the world, the economy here has been very resilient—so much so that we have had 21 years of growth.

We are now the 12th largest economy in the world. We have improved that ranking by three since those over there were last in government. There have been something like 800,000 jobs created in Australia, whilst around the rest of the developed world millions of people have lost their jobs. And we are headed back to surplus, with modest debt. This is a very substantial achievement for Australia and for the Australian people. Interest rates are now much lower than they were under the Liberal Party. If you have a $300,000 mortgage, you are now saving around $4,500 a year in repayments compared to what occurred when those over there were last in office, when there were interest rate rises—10 in a row.

So the point is that the IMF is pointing to the resilience of the Australian economy. And because of our good budget management, we have put in place some historic reforms. We have boosted the age pension and introduced paid parental leave; we have tripled the tax-free threshold; we have increased the childcare rebate and we have increased the superannuation guarantee—all designed to make our economy much more resilient. And we put in place the Asian century white paper. These fundamentals are there for everybody to see.

This report from the IMF completely torpedoes the low-rent scaremongering that we hear from the Leader of the Opposition, and from the shadow Treasurer, who talk our economy down every day of the week. We on this side of the House will get on with building on the strength of the Australian economy by putting in place the fundamental reforms that the Prime Minister was talking about before—fundamental reforms when it comes to school improvement and, of course, the national disability scheme. All of these things are important.

We have seen the carbon scare campaign waged by those opposite fade away. And what have we got now? We have got another smear campaign because they do not have any policies.

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