Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to his pre-election commitment to adopt the budget discipline of the Howard government. He said:

I am an economic conservative, I’m proud of that fact …

Prime Minister, in which year will you deliver your first budget surplus? Prime Minister, in which year will you pay off your $153 billion of debt? Isn’t this just a case of another Labor broken promise?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It has been, I think, more than 100 days since we have had a question on jobs. I notice that, even in this breaking of Joe’s duck for the last several weeks, there is still no question on jobs. Can I say in response to the honourable member’s question that what is appropriate and what is conservative in dealing with a global economic crisis is this: for the government to expand its own role and the economy when the private sector is in retreat and for the government to withdraw its activity once the private sector recovers. That is why the honourable member will be familiar with the fact that the government’s national stimulus strategy was purposely designed to peak when the economy was at its weakest and then tail off. In fact, I am advised that the government’s stimulus strategy, and the payments associated with it, peaked in the second quarter of 2009. That is because we are through the initial set of payments to pensioners, carers and low-income families. Secondly, we are now in the process of the medium-term infrastructure build—Building the Education Revolution, the insulation package for people’s houses as well as the public housing investment—before we move into stage 3, which is the longer term infrastructure build. That is how it is designed—to deal with weaknesses in the economy now and build the infrastructure we need for the long term. If the honourable member is asking for the definition of what constitutes an economically conservative response to what has been the grossest assault on the Australian economy by the global economy in 75 years—

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hockey interjecting

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for North Sydney interjects. If he looks at the data produced by the International Monetary Fund he will see that 2009 is the first time since 1951 that the world economy has contracted.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hockey interjecting

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He says, ‘Oh, it’s the Australian economy.’ Is the shadow Treasurer suggesting that Australia is unaffected by movements in the global economy? Is the alternative Treasurer of Australia seriously suggesting that, given our exposure to (a) global financial markets and (b) global export markets, the level of growth in the global economy does not materially affect growth and jobs in this economy?

This government is unapologetic about stepping up to the plate to defend Australian jobs. Had we taken the advice of those opposite, what would have happened? We would have hundreds of thousands more Australians out of work. The result of our action is this: we now have the second-lowest unemployment of the major advanced economies. As a result of our actions and the actions of the Australian business community, Australia is the only economy of the major advanced economies not to have gone into recession. It is the only economy of the 33 economies in the OECD to have grown positively in the 2009-10 financial year. On top of that, we have registered the lowest debt and the lowest deficit. I regard that as a reasonable record of achievement so far, with much more to be done.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Has the Prime Minister concluded his answer?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, on a point of order: yesterday when I asked you a question after question time about the habit of pausing and allowing a minister to finish their answer, you said I had to take that as a point of order at the time of the offence. I noticed that the Prime Minister, in his answer just now, was allowed to finish at least a couple of sentences while the shadow Treasurer stood to take the point of order. I ask you to address that issue in the future.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will try to predict which standing order the Manager of Opposition Business was rising on. I suppose it was the belief that I am obliged to recognise people approaching the dispatch box for a point of order. The wording in the standing orders is ‘may’. As I tried to explain yesterday, when I believe there is a chance that the minister is concluding their answer, I allow that to happen. I just would like to make the comment—and some keen observers might like to think about this and not just shake their heads—that I have found that every time I allow a point of order, as I said last week, for every action there appears to be a reaction and we spend a lot more time going through the motions again. I believe that it suits the convenience of the House to allow this, because I can only believe that the defence of these points of orders is because people are trying to make a point rather than a point of order. The member for Kingston.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, you are not at all. The member for Kingston will resume her seat. If this five or 10 minutes of quicksand will allow an understanding of what is happening, the member for Sturt on a point of order.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My point, Mr Speaker, is no reflection on you. It is true that standing order 86(a) says ‘A Member may raise a point of order’, but standing order 86(b) says ‘A Member interrupted by a point of order must resume his or her seat.’ So, when the member standing on this side of the House takes their point of order, it is the member who must resume their seat. That is the point. That is no reflection on you, Mr Speaker.

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Sturt will resume his seat. Those on my right, it is not an open invitation for you to make comments. The point of order requires me to give recognition to the person rising on the point of order and it is at that stage, when I give the call to the person, that the person on their feet should resume their place. So all of these things, I agree, are deliberate decisions that I have made to try to keep things going. Regarding the member for North Sydney, I do not believe that I can read his mind all the time, but he would have been approaching the—

Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Melham interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Banks! The member for North Sydney would have been rising on a point of order that could only have been on relevance. The relevance was that the Prime Minister was concluding.