Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Special Minister of State (House)) Share this | Hansard source

Australians won't be lining up to congratulate the Prime Minister or the Treasurer on the economy in the same way that the member for Forde seems to be doing today. When I'm out and about in my community, the message I hear from people about our economy is very clear. For most people their experience of the economy is defined by stagnant wages, insecure work, declining living standards and, most importantly of all, struggles with the cost of living. All of those things are related, as people feel that everything is going up except their wages. People feel, with some justification, that the rules of the economy are written to benefit somebody else at their expense.

The member for Forde and I share a pretty big border in Logan City in our part of the world. So, I can only assume that he has been hearing the same sorts of things that I have been—and that he has been completely ignoring them. Obviously on our side of the House we welcome that relatively strong headline economic growth figure of 3.4 per cent that came out a couple of Wednesdays ago. Given the really quite healthy global conditions that we're experiencing at the moment, we expect there to be a strong headline growth number in this country. Of course, we in the Labor Party are proud that Australia is in its 27th year of continuous economic expansion. We're especially proud of the role that we played during the global financial crisis in ensuring that that remarkable run continued.

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