Bruce Baird (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Treasurer. Would the Treasurer inform the House of recent data on the Australian economy? What does this indicate about the government’s economic management?

Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Cook for his question. I can inform him that Sensis released their business index for the October quarter today, which showed a solid improvement in perceptions of the economy and of the future economic direction, which rose strongly, improving by 14 per cent. The report also found that the federal government is the most supported government by small and medium enterprises in Australia, with a solid positive net rating—as opposed to the Labor state governments, which overwhelmingly have negative ratings by small and medium sized businesses. Of course, that is because Labor governments in all of the states do not care about small businesses.

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Tanner interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Melbourne is warned!

Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

All those state governments care about is militant unionism—the kind of unionism that you are going to see in Melbourne on Thursday and the kind of unionism which is anti small business. It is because Labor cannot stand up to their union controllers that small and medium sized businesses in this country will not accept that the state Labor governments are supportive. In addition to that, Standard and Poor’s released their credit rating today, rating Australia’s sovereign credit at AAA, the highest rating assigned by Standard and Poor’s. Standard and Poor’s noted in their assessment today that Australia has one of the best fiscal positions globally, which is reflected in the net creditor position of the Australian federal government.

When this government came to office, we had a net debtor position of $96 billion. That is where the Australian accounts were left by the then Minister for Finance, Mr Beazley. Standard and Poor’s now record that Australia has a net creditor position—that is, we have repaid $96 billion of Labor Party debt—and, as a consequence of that, Australia’s credit rating is now AAA. I hardly need to remind the House that Australia was downgraded twice in its credit rating under the Labor Party. In 1986 we were downgraded to AA plus. In 1989 we were downgraded to AA. It was not until the coalition was elected that, in 1999, we were upgraded to AA plus, and in 2003 we recovered our AAA credit rating. These things were done by the coalition government; they could never have been done by the Labor Party. The Labor Party is the party that lost Australia’s credit rating, and the Liberal and National parties have recovered it through proper economic management—the kind of management which the Labor Party failed to implement.