Dave Sharma (Wentworth, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Brand for the important opportunity to talk about our economic record and how our economy is well-placed to withstand external shocks. Let's examine our economic record. We are in our 29th year of economic growth, which is a record for any developed country. We've run our first current account surplus in 45 years—our first current account surplus since 1975. We've been running a trade surplus now for a record 24 months, which means, to lay people, we're exporting more than we're importing. We have the lowest welfare dependency ratio in 30 years, which means we've got more people in jobs and less people on welfare. We've got the longest unbroken month-on-month jobs growth since monthly records began in 1978. In the year to January 2020, employment grew 1.9 per cent—that's double the OECD average. We've created 80,000 jobs in the last three months, and 311,000 jobs in the year to October 2019. Our workforce participation is at record levels, with almost 75 per cent of the population aged 15 to 64 in a job. We've handed down the first balanced budget in 11 years, which means we have the fiscal headroom to respond to shocks and act in the face of contingencies like bushfire and like the coronavirus. And we've been able to do all this without raising taxes and without imposing special levies or duties.

Our economic outlook is positive. We've got a AAA credit rating from the three ratings agencies—one of only 10 countries to have this. The IMF is forecasting Australia to grow faster than the United States, faster than Canada, faster than Japan, faster than France, faster than Germany and faster than the United Kingdom, for both the years 2020 and 2021. The Reserve Bank Governor said just a few weeks ago, on 7 February: 'When we met six months ago, I said there were signs that the Australian economy may have reached a gentle turning point. The data that we have received since last met is consistent with this.'

I refer you here to a leader in The Economist, published in October 2018, titled, 'What the world can learn from Australia.' I quote:

Rising incomes, low public debt, an affordable welfare state, popular support for mass immigration and a broad consensus on the policies underpinning these things—that is a distant dream in most rich countries. Many Western politicians could scarcely imagine a place that combined them all. Happily, they do not have to, because such a country already exists: Australia. Its economy is arguably the most successful in the rich world.

This is no reason to rest on our laurels. These things do not happen by accident. They happen because of careful planning, careful budget management and things like fiscal consolidation. For the first time in 11 years, last year the budget was returned to balance. Under six years of Labor, under the former member for Lilley, every year there was a deficit, running up $240 billion in debt altogether. Thank you to the former member for Lilley!

We've reduced the growth in spending from four per cent per year under Labor to 1.3 per cent. That's how we've managed to fiscally consolidate. We've done this whilst delivering tax cuts: tax cuts for households and tax cuts for small businesses, allowing people to keep more of what they earn. When these tax cuts are implemented in full, over 94 per cent of Australians will be paying no more than 30 cents in the dollar. We've done this whilst we've still invested record amounts in public services—schemes like the National Disability Insurance Scheme; adding over 2,000 new lifesaving medicines to the PBS—

See this speech in context