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

I thank the shadow Treasurer for that question, because this government makes no apology for putting jobs and growth first. We have got the employment figures out today. There have been 850,000 jobs created in this country under this government. That has happened under the most difficult of circumstances—a global financial crisis and then, at the end of last year, another bout of global volatility. In the second part of year, we saw Europe go into recession, we saw a question mark about Chinese growth and we saw slight growth in the United States. In those circumstances, the performance here in the Australian economy, unlike other developed economies, has been second to none—850,000 jobs.

The Leader of the Opposition was asking before about cost of living. Let me tell you this. When it comes to cost of living, the most fundamental thing that a family needs is a job. Those opposite do not get that connection between living standards and jobs, because, if they did get that connection between living standards and jobs, they would not put forward the absurd proposition that right now we should be cutting economic growth and cutting jobs, and they most certainly would not be putting forward the fact that they, in their budget strategy, have to cut the budget by a further $70 billion. That would hit growth and it would hit jobs.

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