John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

'Unprecedented' is an overused word at the moment. This is an unprecedented pandemic with unprecedented cost and unprecedented responses from this government. But the fact remains that everything we are seeing right now is unprecedented to most of us. There are only a tiny fraction of our constituents who were alive during the Spanish flu and even less who remember it. We have to go back to the Great Depression to remember times of economic destruction as bad as these and back to wartime to remember the last time Australia faced a determined enemy and a national response this big. Half of my office are even too young to remember the 1990s recession—not me.

We have been forced to act big and act quickly in response to this crisis. Thankfully, this government has been supporting our economy to ensure it has been growing strongly for years. Unemployment was low—the participation rate was near a record high, at 66 per cent—and, for the first time in over a decade, we were back in surplus, albeit briefly. We were fortunate that we faced this crisis from a position of budgetary strength, which has allowed us to take the tough decisions to survive this crisis intact and, then, to pave the road to recovery better than before.

This government moved fast and thoroughly. There is no time here to talk to every measure the government has put in place, which is testament to the huge amount of support we are providing. A total of $320 billion is being injected into the economy by all arms of government in order to keep Australia in work and to keep businesses in businesses. That's equivalent to 16.4 per cent of the GDP. This includes $17.6 billion for the government's first economic stimulus package, $90 billion from the Reserve Bank of Australia, $15 billion from the government to deliver easier access to finance, $66.1 billion in the second economic support package and $130 billion in the JobKeeper payments. As the Treasurer mentioned earlier, there have been over 80 regulatory changes made since the virus broke out, all designed to facilitate the continuation of business—the survival of business. Our economic support package includes support for households, including casual sole traders, retirees and those on income support; assistance for businesses to keep people in a job; regulatory protection; and finance support for businesses to stay in business.

The government is taking unprecedented action to strengthen the safety net for Australians who are stood down or lose their jobs and is increasing support for small businesses facing a tough six months ahead. However, the biggest improvement to our budget is the huge benefits we will see from keeping Australians alive and healthy. We are not alone in facing an economic crisis but our country is one of the lucky few that does not also have a massive health crisis to mitigate. Australians will be able to return to work and social life sooner because we have not let this crisis run free and because we have all listened to the critical health advice. Today, on International Nurses Day, we must remember and thank from the bottom of our hearts all the health professionals who have kept us safe. They will allow us to get back to normal sooner. But we must also thank everybody who has been staying at home rather than going out, calling their friends rather than meeting them, and putting the health of their neighbours ahead of their personal freedom. Thank you, everyone.

We must stay vigilant. As the Treasurer mentioned, it will cost New South Wales alone $1.4 billion per week if they have to go back into lockdown. Nationally, that's $4 billion per week. This will all be over soon and we will need to find new ways to get our economy rolling, infrastructure projects to stimulate our economy and grow our settlement, new funding mechanisms to limit the damage to our budget and get better value for our taxpayers. These are the sorts of things we must do to get our economy back on track again. The government has done incredibly well to bring our economy back to a place of strength over the past seven years. Now we have dealt with this new crisis with speed, clarity and efficiency. Soon we will be in the fifth set, and I am confident we will have the projects, policies and ideas to bring us back to prosperity.

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