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

I thank the member for Wentworth for his question and acknowledge his experience as a distinguished diplomat for Australia abroad as our ambassador to Israel before coming to this place. The national account numbers yesterday revealed the real devastation COVID-19 is having on the Australian economy. We had a seven per cent fall in GDP for the June quarter. That is the single largest fall that Australia has ever recorded. The single biggest contributor to that fall in GDP over the June quarter was the fall in consumption. We saw a reduction in consumption on transport services of 80 per cent. We saw a reduction in consumption at hotels, cafes and restaurants of 60 per cent. The reason behind this fall was the health restrictions that were put in place as a result of COVID-19. The Australian way of life was effectively put on hold through the June quarter. This is the impact of a once-in-a-century pandemic on our national economy.

In response to COVID-19, we put in place a comprehensive range of measures, some $314 billion of support—from the JobKeeper program; to the cash flow boost; to the $750 payments to millions of Australians who are on income support; to the $550 coronavirus supplement; to billions of dollars of incentives to businesses to invest in plant, machinery and other equipment to help them be more productive as businesses and indeed to help us be more productive as a nation.

The fact that we went into this crisis from a position of economic strength gave us the financial firepower to respond. But the impact of our $340 billion worth of measures has also seen 700,000 jobs being saved. The advice of Treasury is that the unemployment rate would be five percentage points higher today but for the economic support that we have provided as a country and also that, as a result of this economic support, the severity in the fall in GDP that we saw yesterday was not as great as was seen in other countries. But the road ahead will be hard, the road ahead will be long. But there is hope for the future. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and the Morrison government is absolutely committed to getting Australians back to work.

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