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

I thank the member for Robertson for her question. This country does face very uncertain times. We face a very uncertain international outlook. We face, even as we stand here today, the terrible situation that we see in Ukraine and Europe, where we have Russian troops still amassed on the border, where we still have the situation of cyberattacks being reported to have been undertaken on Ukraine, on their government, on their military and on their banks. We have the situation where countries of the world that believe in liberal democracy and freedom and the sovereignty of nations and being free from coercion are standing together against Russia. But we do, indeed, have a situation where there is one very large country in our region that has not joined those countries in condemning that, and I ask it to do so again. We do live in very uncertain times, and that does flow through to the economy.

This year the Australian people will make a very important choice about the future. A strong economy will deliver a stronger future for Australians, and that strong economy will enable us to continue to support our defence forces and our sovereign manufacturing capability, to ensure that we can keep downward pressure on inflation to deal with rising cost-of-living pressures. That strong economy and strong financial management will enable us to continue to see our economy push through and come out of this pandemic as one of the strongest economies in the world of advanced economies.

This is no accident. This is no accident. This is the product of a clear economic plan that has been taking this country through this pandemic. In the same vein, our strong plans on national security, whether it's on protecting our borders, bolstering our defence forces, funding our intelligence agencies, working with our partners as we enter into landmark new agreements to keep Australians safe and stand up to the coercion we see in our region—these are the standards that we have set as a government. Australians will have a choice between the strength of our government and the strength of our economic management and the strength of our leadership on keeping Australians safe, whether it's through the pandemic, where we have one of the lowest death rates in the world, or keeping Australians safe in our region. Or they have the choice of weakness of the Labor Party. The Labor Party has demonstrated their weakness not just recently but over the entire political life of the Leader of the Labor Party when it comes to economic management and national security. He spent little more than a heartbeat in the National Security Committee and the same on the Expenditure Review Committee.

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