Andrew Charlton (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

CHARLTON () (): The shadow Treasurer is so desperate to talk down the Australian economy that he is even making up things that don't exist. Friends, his favourite imaginary calamity at the moment is something that he calls 'a household recession'. There is such a thing as a recession, but there's no such thing as 'a household recession'. The thing is that you can't just take anything that has been declining over time and put the word 'recession' in front of it to make up a new term. When migration falls for two quarters, we don't call it a 'population recession'. When it's been raining for two weeks, we don't call it a 'sunshine recession'. When we go two days without his colleagues backgrounding against him, we don't call it an 'Angus recession'. Friends, you can't just make up any kind of recession you feel like, although I do quite like the idea of an 'Angus recession', to be honest. I like it. I would define it, if I had to, as 'a significant lack of economic imagination going for over two quarters'. Or maybe an 'Angus recession' would be two months in which Angus doesn't get a question in question time or two months without dodgy, made-up statistics about Clover Moore. That could also be an 'Angus recession'. The more I think about it the more I think we should be creating this. So, friends, when the shadow Treasurer says that we're in a 'household recession', I say: 'Great work, Angus! Great creativity! A+ for making up something, but unfortunately, it doesn't exist.'

This is relevant for the following reason: even though a 'household recession' is not a defined concept, I'll tell you what is a defined concept: a recession. A recession is a defined concept, and there are many countries around the world that have experienced a recession over the last two years when they have been battling against exactly the same challenges that Australia has been facing. Think about Britain. Think about Japan. Think about New Zealand, Finland and Ireland. All of these countries have faced rising global inflation and the challenge to get that inflation down, and every single one of those countries went into recession as part of that battle. I don't know if those countries have been in a household recession or not, because, once again, as I said before, it's not a thing and, unless they have an imaginary shadow Treasurer in those countries making up that concept, we'll never know. But they have been in an actual recession and, friends, that is what distinguishes them from us.

Despite how much the shadow Treasurer might want Australia to be in a recession, despite how much he might think it's in his political interests for us to be in a recession and despite how much he's desperate to talk down the Australian economy, the truth is that the Australian economy has been one of the more remarkably resilient economies around the world. We have halved inflation without a recession. The Reserve Bank has brought interest rates up by 400 basis points, and there has been no recession in Australia. The problem is that the shadow Treasurer has been poor this term and has been unable to lay a glove on the government. He has delivered two years of franchise-killing performance in the course of this parliament, so now he's desperate to make up for it with a win.

Unfortunately, the record speaks differently. The record speaks of an economy that has halved inflation without a recession by maintaining record levels of employment. If you had gone back two years and you'd lined up a group of economists and you'd said to them, 'What do you think Australia's chances are of bringing inflation down from something with a seven in front of it to something with a two in front of it while maintaining employment at the current levels?' let me tell what you those economists would've said to you. They would've said 'Good luck! It's never been done before.' Never in Australian history have we managed to slow the economy in a way that brings inflation out of the system so quickly that it brings inflation down by 500 basis points without a recession while maintaining a robust labour market. That is what distinguishes Australia from other countries. That is what is the defining feature of these last two years. You can make up a household recession, a population recession, a sunshine recession or an Angus recession, but the reason you have to make up those things is that we're not in an actual recession, much to your chagrin.

That is the record of the Labor government. It's a record that is unparalleled in Australian history. That achievement has never been delivered before, and that's a record— (Time expired)

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