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

The fact is that the financial statements which were published last Friday show that there has been a whack to revenues of around $6 billion in the first seven months of this year. Those opposite want to put their heads in the sand and pretend that nothing has changed. What changed at the end of last year was something very fundamental in our economy: we saw that the terms of trade went down and the dollar stayed up, and the consequence to our economy of that change is a huge whack to government revenues. It is unprecedented in our history to have a situation where the terms of trade go down and the dollar stays up. What that has done is put an enormous squeeze on profits and on incomes right across our economy. In the face of that we have opted to support jobs and growth. But those opposite would make a different choice—just like they did during the global financial crisis. The choice they took then was for recession; the choice we take now is for growth and jobs. The approach that they would follow is the approach we have seen overseas—we have seen it in Europe: slash and burn, cut jobs when revenue goes down, and debt goes higher and deficits go higher. We reject that approach. This is the approach of those opposite; it is the approach of the IPA, their favourite think tank—the IPA is in bed with them because they have a program to slash jobs and growth in our economy. We on this side of the House stand proudly behind jobs.

Mr Pyne interjecting—

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