Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. Will the minister update the House on how cash payments to families and pensioners have helped cushion Australia’s economy from the impact of the global recession and of any responses?

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Parramatta for her question. As she may be aware, more than 50,000 direct payments have been made to families, pensioners and carers through the stimulus payments that this government has delivered over the last few months. It is important to note that all of us owe a very big thank you to the families, pensioners and carers who have, as a result of these stimulus payments, been doing their bit to make sure that Australia did experience positive economic growth in the March quarter. Yesterday’s national accounts showed that the government’s cash payments did in fact find their mark and that was because families and pensioners spent at least a good proportion of those payments to keep household consumption positive. That has been very good news for this country.

As the Prime Minister and Treasurer have said, we are not out of the woods by any means. We understand the impact of the global financial crisis. While we have been delivering these payments, we have been getting on with the next stage of our nation-building strategy for recovery and that includes a lot of work, particularly in the housing and construction industry. We know that many people—not including anybody opposite, of course, but economists, industry, pensioners and families—have very much welcomed these payments.

Some of the people who welcomed the payments were pensioners who the member for Parramatta and I met just a couple of weeks ago. One pensioner told me that he knew of a number of his neighbours who had been able to the use the December payments to go and visit family that they had never been able to visit before. They had not had the money to do so before. Another lady at our afternoon tea told us a terrific story about how she had used her December payment to get some local tradies in to fix up her fence, get rid of some rubbish and get some landscaping done. Just in case the opposition misses the point of these stories from local pensioners in Parramatta, it was all about making sure that those local tradespeople had some extra work because pensioners had money to spend. That was actually the point of the payments. The pensioners did go out and spend the money and, as a result, local tradespeople in Parramatta had extra work.

The opposition never trusted families or pensioners. They never thought that they should get these extra payments. They have been doing nothing short of wishing and hoping that the cash payments would not work. Now, of course, they find it very hard to admit that we have seen some early signs of the government’s strategy working. We had the shadow Treasurer on Sky Agenda this morning. The journalist said to the shadow Treasurer, ‘Do you concede the government’s stimulus package has helped the Australian economy at all?’ The interview went on:

Hockey: Well, I think it is fair to say that, if you spend enough money, there will be some impact.

Journalist: A positive impact, though?

Hockey: Well, it must have had some impact.

Can you believe it? The shadow Treasurer now says the government’s strategy was always going to work. That is after they flip-flopped and did not know whether or not they supported the payments all during December and then in February they decided that they would vote against the payments. This is yet more evidence from the shadow Treasurer that it is all about political opportunism. The opposition have no idea whatsoever about how to deal with this terrible global financial crisis.