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

I thank the member for Moreton for that very important question. Last week we had the national accounts, and our economy grew by 0.6 per cent in the December quarter—3.1 per cent through the year. This occurred at a time when the shadow Treasurer said that the economy was flatlining, and, of course, the Leader of the Opposition claimed that the economy was yet to grow. The fact is that this is a great result for Australia, whichever way you look at it. But those opposite want to continuously talk our economy down. The fact is that more than half of the advanced economies around the world did not grow during that quarter, and we grew faster than every other developed economy bar one. This gets us to the point where our economy is 13 per cent larger now than it was prior to the global financial crisis. We know that not everybody is immune from these conditions in the global economy and there are sectors and families in our economy that are doing it tough. As I was saying before, we can see this in the unusual combination of events that are playing out in our economy: dramatically declining terms of trade on the one hand and a dollar which is staying stubbornly high. What that is doing is putting a squeeze on profits and income right across our economy.

The shadow Treasurer wants everybody to believe that that is not happening, that, just as there was not a global financial crisis, these events are not playing out in our economy right now. But the fact is that they are having a dramatic impact on government revenues. Government revenues are down $6 billion since MYEFO. That will have an impact on this year and years beyond—of that there is no doubt. When the global economy takes an axe to revenues, the commitment of this government is not to take an axe to jobs and growth. That is the proposition that has been put by those opposite. In the face of all this, they are saying, 'Take an axe to jobs and growth.' We on this side of the parliament would never, ever do that, because we are committed to jobs and growth and supporting Australian families in jobs.

The Leader of the Opposition raised the question before of the cost of living. If you do not have a job, you cannot handle the cost of living. If the opposition had had their way during the global financial crisis, hundreds of thousands of Australians would be without jobs. Our policies during the global financial crisis supported growth and jobs, particularly for people in Western Sydney. We put Australian workers first. Those opposite always put them last.

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