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

As I think I indicated in the House last week, we will be updating all of our budget forecasts in the normal way, and we will do that in the May budget. But I do want to make a couple of points about the budget and about economic growth.

I want to make some points about jobs, because we on this side of the House make no apology for putting jobs and growth first. And of course, this is a matter of choice. Back during the global financial crisis, as a matter of choice, we chose growth and jobs. Those opposite would have left it all to chance, if they had been in power, and we would have seen a recession in Australia. As a consequence of the choice that this government made, there are 900,000 additional jobs in Australia today—as a result of our government making that choice to support jobs and growth. And just as we did back during the global financial crisis, we made a choice again at the end of last year—in the face of very big revenue write-downs which are flowing through our economy from a range of unique circumstances, which have been chronicled—

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