Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bass for her question. She will know—like I think many in this House, particularly the government members—that last night, as the Treasurer handed down the budget, the response from so many was to welcome so many of those measures. But, most importantly, I note the comments by Chris Richardson, the esteemed economist, who said: 'It is absolutely the right budget for the times. The fight against COVID has become the fight against unemployment.' He is right, and that is exactly what this budget is designed to do as we secure the Australian recovery and we take up that fight against unemployment through the measures that were handed down in this budget.

But, importantly, what this recognises is that we understand the times that we are in right now. Those times are that we have a global pandemic that is not better but worse than it was a year ago—a global pandemic that has raged through the developed world and is now raging through the developing world as we speak. It also comes at a time when we know that the economic impact on the global economy means that this pandemic recession is 30 times worse than what we saw in the global financial crisis. So it is a significant and very difficult time in which we are putting together this recovery plan.

Our actions as a government over the course of the past 18 months have backed Australians in through the course of this pandemic to support the decisions that they are making to get them, their families, their businesses and their employees through what has been such a difficult time, and to manage the health impacts. If Australia had had the average mortality rate of the OECD nations, there would have been 30,000 more fatalities as a result of COVID in this country over the course of this pandemic to this time. In addition, there are more people employed today than before the pandemic began.

Australia has made great advances in this fight against unemployment and the fight against the COVID-19 virus, but we cannot put those gains at risk. That is why securing Australia's recovery is what this budget is all about. It is a plan to secure that recovery, which will ensure that the gains that have been hard won will not be lost but embedded—the jobs that have been taken back, those million Australians finding their way back into the workforce and the employers who have made it possible and the bravery of those Australians getting that job done. That's what this budget is about: a plan for securing Australia's recovery.

See this speech in context