Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Leichhardt for his question. He's a great champion of northern Australia. He's a great supporter of the reef and the tourism industry. There's no more enthusiastic supporter of all those crocodile catchers out there than the member for Leichhardt.

I can inform the House that in today's national accounts we saw growth of 0.5 per cent in the December quarter. What we saw through the year was 2.2 per cent growth. That was up from 1.8 per cent through the year growth for the September quarter. This puts to rest the falsehood spread by those opposite that the Australian economy was softening at the end of last year. In fact, this side of the House believes in the resilience of the Australian economy and it has defied all those who seek to talk it down.

This is the sentiment that we agree with: 'This tide of negativity, this relentless negativity from the doomsayers has to stop. It insults the hard work that so many Australians put in to make our economy strong.' Who said that? Was that the Prime Minister? No. Was it the member for Riverina? No. Was it the member for Pearce? No. That was the former Labor Treasurer, the member for Lilley, Wayne Swan.

The reality is that in today's national accounts we saw household disposable income increased by 2.6 per cent over the second-half of last year. Average earnings, which is another way of measuring wage growth, was also up three per cent through the year.

The alternative approach is the high-taxing, high-spending approach of those opposite—fiscal mismanagement and huge budget deficits. I was pretty surprised when I had a look at a book by Paul Kelly called Triumph and Demise. On page 415 he talked about the alternative approach from those opposite. This is what he said about Wayne Swan, 'Wayne Swan announced the budget would return to surplus in three years time.'

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