Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a matter of regret that the shadow Treasurer believes that we are somehow being smug or not humble about what is occurring in Australia today, because the fact of the matter is that there are members of the community I represent who are worse off today than they've ever been. They're not that way because of anything that this parliament did; they are that way because of a global pandemic. All of us, I think, come to this place with members of our community who are now struggling—as the shadow Treasurer points out—to put food on the table, to pay the mortgage and to ensure that their kids are looked after when they go to school and that none of them are disadvantaged in the way that sometimes children can be when their parents' income has been cut. This parliament has done much to try and ensure that those in communities like mine and, undoubtedly, those in the communities of all members in this chamber have been looked after during this pandemic.

It is unfortunate; it is more than unfortunate. It is a place where we are: when you compare this pandemic in its economic effect to that of the global financial crisis, it is 45 times worse. It is not something that any of us in this chamber have ever witnessed. Indeed, you need to go back to one of the two world wars to come up with a similar economic downturn to what we are experiencing today. None of us, I think, were prepared for this to come out this year the way that it has. But this government had three very key strategic purposes when it became apparent how great this virus and its spread throughout the world would be.

The first strategic purpose we had was to keep Australians safe. I know that there are some people who try to say that this is a choice between the health outcome and the economic outcome. The data is pretty clear—and, in fact, it makes a lot of sense; you don't have to think that long—that the health outcome and the economic outcome are absolutely and completely entwined. If you have a situation where there are people dying, then it will have a material impact on the economic wellbeing of your community. But it was always the strategic purpose of this government to ensure that all Australians—regardless of where they come from; regardless of who represents them—were kept safe. As the member for Wentworth pointed out, there are 16,000 fewer deaths in Australia than there are in other parts of the world due to the actions that this parliament took to ensure the health and safety of Australians. That is not something that this government takes credit for; that is something that all of us in this place should take credit for. It is something that has made a material difference to the lives of people, who are still alive today because of decisions that we took.

The second purpose that we had was to get people through this pandemic, in an economic and welfare sense. This parliament voted on record levels of support for all Australians, regardless of where they came from. It's over $200 billion in JobSeeker, JobMaker, JobKeeper—to universities and R&Ds. The third strategic purpose of this government is to actually get back to the job of this parliament, which is to create economic hope and opportunity for all Australians. To that effect, we brought down a budget which those opposite voted for three days later. We brought a budget into this House, and, in record time, it was approved. It was about ensuring that the core things, the core foundations, of our economy were improved and were there for all Australians at the end of this, whether it was in education funding, whether it was record funding in aged care and health, whether it was changing our research and development grants scheme and our intellectual property framework to ensure that Australian businesses could take a risk and innovate and know that that would be rewarded, or whether it was bringing forward tax cuts to incentivise people to have a go. It's not a radical idea that if you want to drive the economic prosperity of a nation, you need to do so by getting people to take a risk. (Time expired)

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