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

I only regret that there's not more opportunity for us to tell Australians about the strong economic recovery that's happening. We wouldn't be able to fill the air time with the number of jobs that are being created in this Australian economy, because our plan to get us through the pandemic was about backing Australian small and medium-sized businesses, to back them through the pandemic with the JobKeeper record investment to support businesses through this pandemic, a JobKeeper program that this opposition, this Labor Party, said they support—but then they bag it at every opportunity. Australians will know that it was this government who stood up for them in the course of the pandemic.

We now have one of the strongest advanced economies coming through this pandemic of any advanced economy in the world. On top of that, we have one of the lowest death rates from COVID of any country in the world and one of the highest vaccination rates. So if I'm asked to say what the government has been able to achieve: a stronger economy, a stronger response to the pandemic with one of the lowest death rates in the world, and we are ranked number 2 on pandemic preparedness of all countries around the world. So, when it comes to how Australia has performed against the rest of the world in the pandemic, that is what we've delivered. Most importantly, we are getting Australians into work.

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