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

The OECD forecasts an unemployment rate of 5.5 per cent in 2013. When you compare that to an unemployment rate across the OECD of eight per cent what that means is that, unlike just about every other developed economy, we have had tremendous success in supporting employment and in keeping the doors of small business open in this country. That means that people have jobs—something like 800,000 jobs created in this country during the period of this government despite all of the headwinds in the global economy, the most disturbing times in the global economy since the Great Depression. That means that families have not been hit with the skill destruction, the high levels of unemployment and the impacts on local communities that have occurred in other countries. That means a great deal to all of the people who live in Moreton. We have avoided the really high unemployment rates; we have avoided the really high rates of destruction of small businesses in particular. That means we are so much better placed to make investments for the future, particularly in education, and this means a great deal to the 50,000 people who are engaged in education and skills training in Moreton.

All of this is in stark contrast to those opposite. All they have is a dirt file—they have no file on education, no file on health and they certainly have no file on how to support an economy at a time of global uncertainty.

See this speech in context