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

The federal budget delivered last month lays out a comprehensive economic recovery plan for the nation. The COVID-19 pandemic, on top of the tragic loss of life that it's caused, has also been the biggest shock to hit the global economy since the Great Depression. The global economy is forecast to contract by some 4½ per cent in 2020. In the last major economic crisis to hit this world, the global financial crisis, the world economy contracted by only 0.1 per cent.

There have been 32 million cases of coronavirus, in nearly every country in the world. So far this year COVID-19 has killed well over one million people. In a normal year, malaria kills around 600,000 people, HIV-AIDS kills 950,000 people and suicide results in around 800,000 deaths. COVID-19 has already exceeded each of those. The economic shock of COVID-19 has been equally profound. It has been the biggest shock to hit the global economy since the Second World War. As I said earlier, the IMF expects the global economy to contract by some 4½ per cent. The US economy is expected to contract by around four to five per cent, Japan by five per cent, the euro area by eight per cent and the UK by around 10 per cent, and New Zealand has already contracted around 13 per cent. In fact, the only major economy that is forecast to grow through 2020 is China.

The 2020-21 budget outlines measures to help cushion the blow of the pandemic to accelerate the recovery and to help rebuild our economy for the future. It builds on previous support measures, including JobKeeper, JobSeeker, cash flow relief for small businesses and early access to super. All up, these measures will amount to some $507 billion in government fiscal support since the onset of the pandemic. This is one of the biggest fiscal stimuluses ever delivered by a government.

I know this year has been hard for many Australians, but we are emerging from this crisis intact and together. Of the 1.3 million Australians who lost their jobs or had their hours reduced to zero in April, over half of them are now back at work. 446,000 jobs have been created over the past four months. Consumer confidence has been up for four months straight. Just this month, consumer sentiment jumped 11.9 per cent in a month-on-month basis following an 18 per cent jump in the previous month. While the economy is expected to contract by 3.75 per cent in calendar year 2020, it's expected to recover in 2021 and grow by 4.25 per cent. Unemployment is expected to peak at around eight per cent in December and then begin to come down.

These are sobering figures, but without direct government support it's estimated that unemployment would have reached 12 per cent and stayed there. And though it's little comfort to those Australians doing it tough, Australia has fared well in terms of managing both the health and economic impacts of this crisis. Our deaths from COVID-19 are significantly fewer than other developed countries and our economy has weathered the storm better. We entered this crisis in a strong fiscal position, having restored the budget to balance, and even with additional spending our net debt to GDP ratio will remain low by world standards. Just last month Australia had its AAA credit rating reaffirmed. We will manage this debt burden by restoring jobs, by growing the economy and by positioning Australia for future industries.

This budget lays out our strategy to rebuild our economy and secure Australia's future. The budget's supporting households, bringing forward stage 2 of our income tax relief, increasing the low-income tax offset and lifting the tax thresholds. As a result, more than 11 million Australians have gotten a tax cut backdated to 1 July. The budget's helping with job creation. There's a new JobMaker hiring credit to encourage businesses to hire younger Australians, payable for up to 12 months and available to those employers who hire Australians on JobSeeker aged 16 to 35. The budget is providing investment incentives, with businesses having a turnover of up to $5 billion able to write off the full value of any eligible assets they purchase for their business, with no limit on the value of assets eligible for full expensing. Businesses will also be able to offset losses from this year against profits made in prior financial years back to 2018-19.

The budget's caring for the vulnerable, providing record funding for hospitals, schools, aged care, mental health and disability services, with additional money for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the doubling of the number of Medicare funded psychological services available, 23,000 additional home-care packages and supplementary payments for age pensioners. The budget's also providing help with affordable housing, with an expansion of the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme and an additional $1 billion in low-cost finance to support the construction of affordable housing, on top of the $4.6 billion provided annually in rental assistance.

My question for the minister is: can the minister please update the chamber on how the government's JobMaker plan, including the JobMaker hiring credit, will lead to our jobs recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic?

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