Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer update the House on today's National Accounts? What are the government's plans to keep investing in the big reforms to make our economy strong and keep our nation smart?

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Wakefield for his question because today's National Accounts confirm that Australia's economy continues to outperform the rest of the developed world—0.6 per cent in the quarter, 2.5 per cent throughout the year. This is a strong result for Australia. It is a solid result which is testament to our economic resilience. Our economy is growing faster than just about every other developed economy in the global economy, three times faster than the OECD average. This has been achieved despite the fact that there is global uncertainty and of course despite the very big transitions that are going on in our economy.

It comes at a time when we have seen recession again in Europe. We have seen something like six straight quarters of negative growth in Europe, the worst they have experienced since the Great Depression. Nine out of 23 advanced economies have reported March quarter results that have contracted during that quarter. So there is a very difficult global outlook.

This also comes at a time when the dollar has been high, and it is certainly bearing down on many industry sectors as we are trying to make the transition from mining sources of growth to nonmining sources of growth. We say that this is a very solid result. The outcome of this is that our economy is now 14 per cent larger than it was at the end of 2007. So we have an impressive array of strengths—solid growth, low unemployment, contained inflation, a triple-A credit rating and record low interest rates.

What we have to do now is continue to get the big economic calls right, and getting the big economic calls right means making the smart investments for the future within a strong fiscal policy. That is why I was so proud that the parliament this morning passed the education bill. You could not get anything more fundamental to the future of our country than this education bill. It stands alongside other big reforms—the NDIS, the stimulus packages that we put in place back in 2008-09—and is a very substantial achievement for this parliament, a historic day for all our children in this country.

We want to ensure that every child gets a good education and that none is left behind. The danger we have here is that people outside New South Wales are going to be left behind. They will be left behind in my home state of Queensland. We have got a big game tonight and the Maroons are going to do well. But what we want to see is Queensland kids doing well as well in the education race and not being left behind the students in New South Wales. There are only two people standing in the road of that—the Leader of the Opposition and the Premier of Queensland. They ought to get out of the way so that we can get this reform in place and decent education for kids right around our country.