Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

There is a great story to be told here about our economy and about jobs because, since we were elected to government in 2007, there have been an additional 920,000 jobs created. That is good news. It is good news for every single one of those people who now have a job. That is the meal ticket. That is the ticket to being able to afford to put your kids through school, buy a home and have a lifestyle. People talk about the cost of living. Yes, we acknowledge that. We have done a whole range of things to reduce the pressures of the costs of living. But the best way to reduce cost-of-living pressures is to have a job. That is one of the things that this government has been very much focused on.

We have maintained a strong economy in very difficult times, going through a global financial crisis that the world has not seen the like of for more than 75 years, even if you could compare it to that time. The depth of the crisis was such that the globe still suffers from the hangover of the GFC. You do not have to look too far. Just look across the water at what is happening to economies in Cyprus and Europe this week. Their unemployment rates are in the 20s, unlike in Australia, where they are in the five-per-cent area. Look at what is happening to their banks, with the collapse of their financial systems, where people dream not of having a mortgage but of the bank not taking their houses off them.

Those things did not happen to us in Australia and they are not going to happen to us in Australia, because it was this Labor government that took the very, very difficult decisions when the global financial crisis happened that we would not allow this to happen in Australia, we would bulletproof this economy and we would shoulder the difficult burden that a government should shoulder, rather than let individuals shoulder the pain that was foisted on the people of Greece, Portugal, Spain, Cyprus and Europe, whose governments did not take action. Those governments said it was just easier to let the people bear the burden. Not in Australia. In Australia, we decided we would take on that burden. We would shoulder the difficult times as a government representing the people of Australia in the national interest for this economy and this people. We made sure people would still have their houses and their jobs and that we would still have a dental scheme and a health system that works better than anywhere else in the world. A Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme that is the envy of everywhere in the world—that is what this government took on.

When we talk about bulletproofing the economy, what does that mean? That means we bought a bulletproof jacket—and it cost us a fair bit of money. Some say it is a little; some say it is a little more. But we paid for that bulletproof jacket so we would shoulder the burden rather than individuals shoulder it—ordinary people working to pay off their mortgages and send their kids to school. We thought it was better that we did it, and we do not regret that for a minute. I certainly do not, because I can hold my head up high. I can go out into my community and talk to all the people who did not lose their homes or see the end of their superannuation and retirement savings. Of course they copped a hit, but guess what? They are recovering and they are coming back. That is what governments do in difficult times. When the dip comes and the recessions come and people have to shoulder that burden, a government helps people and makes sure that the economy remains strong. That is exactly what we did.

Let me give you an example. In Japan, the economy shrank by 1½ per cent. That is an enormous number. That means people go without. That means they are seriously having problems in their economy and people will lose their jobs. In the euro economy zone, the economy shrank by two per cent, an even bigger number. The US economy grew by just above 2¼ per cent. And, even with 2¼ per cent growth, look at what has happened in the United States and what their economy looks like. Over there they have this little term: 'jingle mail'. In the US they have non-recourse mortgage loans, which means, if you cannot afford to pay your mortgage, you simply put your keys into an envelope, send them back to the bank and it is their problem—you walk away with no debt to be repaid. That is jingle mail. We do not do that in Australia. Here we actually pay our debts off, whether it is personal debt, government debt or any other debt, because we meet our responsibilities. That is what this government does and this economy does.

But guess what has happened to Australia's economy since we came to government and since the GFC? This economy grew by 13 per cent. Nine hundred and twenty thousand jobs have been created in this economy, we have had 13 per cent growth and interest rates have fallen from when John Howard left government, when they were 6.75 per cent, to just three per cent today. If you want to talk about cost-of-living pressures and what we are doing to reduce them, let me tell you what that represents for the average family and the average mortgage. If you have an average mortgage of $300,000, that means you are now paying $5,000 a year less. That is $5,000 a year that you can use to pay more off your house, put into savings, take a holiday, put the kids through school or do something extra with. Mortgage holders are $5,000 better off just from that alone.

What are the things that governments can do? We hear the rhetoric and garbage from the other side. That is their only course of action in their proven track record. And have a look at the states. Look at my state of Queensland and what an incoming Liberal government will do. It will slash and burn. What did the Howard government do when it first got elected? It ripped $1 billion straight out of health. Hundreds of millions of dollars was ripped out of education. Who pays the price? Not the government; the government says, 'Look at us; we've got spare money left over. We're sitting on pots of gold and cash.' But where did that cash come from? It came from our schools, our hospitals and our nurses who no longer have a job. That is exactly what they will foist back on this economy if they get re-elected to government.

When we got to government, we kept our commitment on tax cuts. The opposition talk about how they are going to pay for the NDIS and how they are going to pay for dental schemes and investment in infrastructure. Let me tell you one of the things we did: we made an enormous commitment to everybody in this country through infrastructure spending. Ours was the highest-spending government on infrastructure that this country and this economy have ever seen. Spending was many times greater than the great Snowy Mountains scheme. They are the sorts of things that governments do because they create jobs. They create strength in an economy and resilience that, no matter what else happens in the world, we do not need an austerity package in Australia. We do not need to be doing the sorts of things they are doing in Europe, because we have maintained the economy and we have done—

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