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

I thank the member for Moore for his question. I acknowledge his experience as a counsellor and an accountant—and he's famous for his calendars in this place. As we approach Christmas it is appropriate to reflect on how far this country has come in the last two years.

Last March, consumer and business confidence fell to their lowest levels on record and we saw thousands of our fellow Australians, having lost their jobs, lining up outside Centrelink. Treasury were forecasting that unemployment could reach as high as 15 per cent. We responded with programs like JobKeeper, the cash flow boost, support for veterans and carers and pensioners and others on income support, and Australia, ahead of any other advanced economy in the world, saw its GDP higher than it had been going into the pandemic and its employment rate higher than it had been going into the pandemic.

Then we were hit by delta and our two largest states went into lockdown. We responded with around $20 billion of economic support. Now restrictions are easing and our economy is on the road to recovery. There are new variants like omicron, and we know that we are in a strong position to respond, with one of the highest vaccination rates in the world and one of the strongest economies in the world. This is our track record. After the biggest economic shock since the Great Depression, unemployment today is lower than when Labor left office.

I'm asked whether there are any alternative approaches. We know this weak Labor leader does not have the courage to come clean with his policies to the Australian people. This weak Labor leader will not—

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