Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's 1.35 per cent, for those interjecting. We have plenty of interjections, but those of us on this side know what the cash rate is. We saw very clearly, as did the Australian people, those who didn't know.

We are in a softening-up period. Those opposite want to drive down the budget, they want to cut the budget and they want to take things away from the Australian people. The best thing that you can do is to continue to drive the economy and support the things that are paying the Australian people's way.

You still can't commit—I've got to give the Prime Minister his due. The Prime Minister has said that he supports the coal sector and the oil and gas sector, because they are paying the bills of the Australian people. The same can't be said of too many on the front bench. They are out there and they are fudging their way. We saw the minister for the environment at the Press Club; she could not answer the question. She would not say that they supported the resources sector, a sector that is driving over $400 billion of the economy in this country.

We continue to see jobs. We hear about the great skilled workforce shortage. There's certainly a shortage in the workforce, but if they weren't skilled they wouldn't be employed! These are some of the lowest unemployment rates we've seen in this nation since 1974. It is an incredible result, and it needs to be driven forward and it needs to be managed carefully. That is what governments do.

Can you imagine if it was our proposition—in government, in that position right now—that they couldn't control the increasing costs for the Australian people? There would be outrage. There would be Twitter everywhere. We would see so many things on Twitter that even the member for Gippsland would get a comment, I'm sure. We last heard from the Labor government something critical, and that was the recession we had to have. Is it going to be that way again?

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