Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the stimulus package, its importance and the success that it has had for both the Australian economy and in particular my electorate of Dobell. It is without doubt that without the stimulus package the Australian economy would be in a much worse shape than it is. The stimulus package has meant that the Australian economy is the fastest growing economy in the advanced world. It is an economy that is robust and the envy of the world. It is because of the growth we have had in our economy, which has largely been because of the stimulus package, that we have been able to protect Australian jobs. That is the most important thing that the stimulus package was designed to do—to make sure that Australian jobs were protected.

The stimulus package had three phases. The first phase was cash handouts to families, to taxpayers and to pensioners, who were people we all considered needed some assistance and who were also in a position to dispose of that income and help stimulate the economy. In my electorate on the Central Coast, where retail is the biggest employer, it was absolutely vital that people had those cash handouts and it absolutely ensured that employment in the retail sector was maintained. In fact, with that initial cash handout, we actually saw unemployment decrease on the Central Coast, which was something that we could have only dreamed of in relation to the crisis that was embracing the whole world at the time.

The second part of the stimulus package was about building infrastructure that was ready to go now, shovel-ready infrastructure, which meant that as soon as practicable work could start and jobs would be created. The third stage of the package was to help with the long-term infrastructure and make sure that those bottlenecks in the economy were overcome. This has been overwhelmingly successful. Our economy has been seen around the world as the Australian miracle, and it is something that we should all be proud of.

Looking at what the opposition have said in terms of the stimulus package, one wonders whether they exist in the same country and how they are looking at what is happening in the economy. Their first position was that they supported the first round of cash payments. Then their position was that they opposed the schools infrastructure. When we tried to find out how much they opposed, they could not tell us. We have had different positions from the shadow Treasurer and the opposition leader. The shadow Treasurer said they might go $20 million or $50 million lower—they were not quite sure what they would do. The opposition leader changed his position daily with the numbers in his party room, trying to shore up his leadership. So what we had from the opposition was an incoherent ramble in relation to how they would deal with the global financial crisis, whereas on this side of the House we had a sound, well thought out strategy that took account of the changing nature of the economy and how things would change over time.

In my electorate of Dobell, there are over 673 stimulus package projects, totalling $107 million. We have over 106 projects taking place in schools around my electorate. I had the opportunity of meeting Rob, an apprentice at Tacoma Public School, just the other day. Rob is an example of what this stimulus package is about. He is a fourth-year apprentice carpenter who had not worked for six months and whose apprenticeship was in danger of falling over. Because of the stimulus package, he now has a job and his apprenticeship is going to be completed. That is good on two fronts: (1) because it means that this young fellow has a job and is contributing to the economy and (2) because it means that his skills will be used as we come out of this global recession.

This is a nation-building stimulus, a stimulus that meets the requirements of the crisis that this country faced. It is something that all members of this place should be supporting.