Maxine McKew (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I share the sunny optimism of the member for McMillan. In fact, I rise today to speak about confidence and the confidence that I think you can feel right across the country—in cities, in regions and in my own community in the north-west of Sydney. This is measurable. Only yesterday the Westpac-Melbourne Institute survey showed that we were more optimistic about our economic future than we had been at any time since the institute started asking questions about this in the 1970s. Notwithstanding that we could well see a rise in unemployment figures today, the surveys and the statistics are telling a story that I have heard first-hand from right across the country. Whether it is in a poor community like Hilton in Fremantle, where I was a couple of weeks ago, in the central west of New South Wales, in regional Victoria or in our cities, the story from local businesspeople, mayors and councillors is the same: we have held our nerve and it is paying off.

As I visited regional and local community infrastructure projects right across the country, there was gratitude and immense relief that the Commonwealth had acted decisively and ensured that the stimulus was broad, deep and appropriate. At a time when we know that economic growth is still weak, small- to medium-sized infrastructure projects identified and undertaken by local councils across the country have really been a lifesaver. They have supported local jobs and buoyed communities. I think communities can see that the government is on their side. This, in turn, has boosted confidence. What Australia has achieved in the last year has been truly remarkable.

We are close to the first anniversary of the collapse of the once-venerable Wall Street institution Lehman Brothers. That event and the flow-on effect of banking disasters, we all recall, sent shockwaves through the financial system across the world. Credit dried up and there was fear and pessimism right through the last quarter of last year. We need to remember this and marvel at just how successfully Australia has weathered this storm. In fact, one of my Bennelong constituents said to me after a recent return from Singapore, where he was catching up with the family of his Singapore born wife, ‘I have never enjoyed a visit so much.’ I asked why that was. He said: ‘For years, my Singaporean father-in-law has lectured me about the superiority of the Singaporean economy. But now I had such pleasure in saying to him, “I live in a country that has avoided recession and I work for a company that is still hiring.”’ That is the Australian success story, and it did not just happen because of dumb luck. As the Governor of the Reserve Bank said recently, the size and the speed of the government’s response has been one of the important factors in supporting private demand. Another factor has been the collective effort of employers and employees to work differently. (Time expired)