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

I welcome the opportunity to discuss the government's various policy measures to support workers during what has been a global economic shock. Undoubtedly the biggest threat to face the world and Australia this year has been the emergence of COVID-19, the global pandemic. It has threatened the lives and livelihoods of people everywhere. In terms of its impact on health, there have been over 51 million cases worldwide. In a normal year, malaria would kill 600,000 people, HIV/AIDS would kill 950,000 people, and over 800,000 people would lose their lives to suicide. This year so far—there are still a few months to go—COVID-19 has caused the loss of 1.25 million lives.

The economic shock of COVID-19 has been equally profound. It has been the biggest economic shock to hit the globe since the Second World War. The IMF expects the global economy to contract by around 4.4 per cent over 2020, and the major economies are all set to contract—the US economy by between four per cent and five per cent, Japan's by five per cent, the Euro area by around eight per cent, the UK economy by 10 per cent and Canada's by around six per cent. In fact, the only major economy that's forecast to grow through 2020 is China's.

In Australia, rightly, we have prioritised the protection of health. Our death rate is only 33 per million—every death nonetheless a tragedy here in Australia. In France the death rate is around 14 times that, in the United States it is 17 times that and in the United Kingdom it is 18 times that. Our early border restrictions helped stop the entry of the virus. Our testing regime is one of the best in the world. Other measures, like social distancing, investments in testing and contact tracing regimes, ICU capacity, ventilators and personal protective equipment have all played a big part. In total the health response has been more than $18½ billion. The Medical Journal of Australia published in September that they expected that more than 16,000 people would have died in Australia if our outbreak had been as widespread as it has been in the United Kingdom.

This is the important point: by protecting our health, we have helped to cushion the economic blow of the virus. The 2020-21 budget contains a number of other measures to help cushion the blow, to accelerate the recovery and to rebuild our economy more in the future. It builds on previous support measures announced before the budget, such as JobKeeper, JobSeeker, cashflow relief for small business and early access to superannuation. All up, these measures—both those in the budget and those beforehand—amount to some $507 billion in government fiscal support since the onset of the pandemic, one of the biggest fiscal stimuluses ever delivered by a federal government.

This is having an impact. Of the 1.3 million Australians who lost their jobs or had their hours reduced to zero in April, over half are now back at work. In the last four months we have seen 446,000 jobs created. Consumer confidence is up. This month, consumer sentiment lifted by 2½ per cent to 107.7, which means that the index is now at the highest level since November 2013. The 'time to buy a dwelling' index, an indication of confidence in the housing market, jumped eight per cent, making it the highest reading since November 2013. Whilst the Australian economy is expected or forecast to contract by 3.75 per cent in calendar year 2020, it is forecast 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 it is estimated that without direct government support unemployment would have reached 12 percentage points and stayed there for considerably longer.

We have been able to do all this because we entered this crisis in a strong fiscal position, having restored the budget to balance. Even with this additional spending, our net debt-to-GDP ratio will remain low by world standards. We have had our AAA credit rating reaffirmed. We will manage this debt burden by restoring jobs, by growing the economy and by positioning Australia for future industries.

The budget has important measures to support household income, bringing forward stage 2 the of our income tax relief and increasing the low-income tax offset. The budget's also helping job creation, with a new JobMaker hiring credit to encourage businesses to hire younger Australians. I know those opposite have made a point about this, but I would just point out that the unemployment rate for those aged 15 to 34 is considerably higher than the national average. At the moment it is 10.2 per cent, whereas for those aged 35to 54 the unemployment rate is 4.7 per cent, and the national unemployment rate is 6.9 per cent. So these young people aged 15 to 34 are particularly worthy and deserving of support. As past recessions tell us, if we don't help these young people find a job, we are looking at, potentially, a generation of lost opportunities.

I know it's still tough out there for many Australians. These are tough economic times, but there are not many other places you'd rather be than in Australia. We will continue to look after Australians, provide support to the economy and help get Australians back to work.

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