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

I do thank the member for the advertisement for my app, and I invite everybody to have a look. The one thing we do on this side of the House is deal in facts. And when events occur in the global economy, we respond. During the global financial crisis we responded. We supported jobs and growth in our economy. We were opposed tooth and nail by those opposite—indeed, the current Leader of the Opposition slept through the vital vote in the House, the one that saved Australia from recession—so everybody on this side of the House is proud of what we did to support jobs and growth in our economy. We took on a responsible level of debt to support jobs and growth.

I welcome questions every day of the week in this House from the opposition about jobs and growth and about levels of debt because we have a responsible level of debt to support jobs and growth. The outcome of that is an economy 14 per cent larger than it was at the end of 2007. We did not, as a country, go into recession. If those on the other side of the House had had their way they would have slashed expenditure; we would have had high unemployment; we would have had higher deficits; and we would have had higher debt because there would have been enormous capital destruction, high unemployment and dislocation across all of our communities—particularly in the communities in Longman. It would have been savage if your party had their way during the global financial crisis. So we on this side of the House are proud of the fact that we put jobs and growth first.

See this speech in context