Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Why has Australia experienced, for the first time since the global financial crisis, its fourth consecutive quarterly decline in living standards?

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

That is a ridiculous statement, and it is wrong, absolutely wrong. We have asset values going up in Australia. How good is that? And Labor wants to hit those with new taxes. Labor is determined to hit those rising asset values with new taxes, like superannuation taxes. They want to hit home prices. We heard that from the Leader of the Opposition earlier in the week.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, rubbish!

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

He did. He was out there saying, 'We don't like those housing price rises in Sydney.' He is opposed to that . He wants to tax that sort of thing. He wants to raid people's piggy banks and savings accounts if they do not use them for a number of years. Hang on: that is all good news if you have falling asset values, but the fact is that people have rising asset values, and we want people to have rising asset values, which helps them to have a better quality of life. We are seeing good job growth coming through.

I would just make one final point. The member for McMahon does not seem to understand how it all works, because this morning on the doors he said: 'Economic growth is driven by just two things: exports and inventories; it's not broadbased growth.' CommSec chief economist Craig James observed:

… even more encouraging, the result was broad-based with household consumption, exports and housing all contributing to the growth story.

So, given that you have a shadow Treasurer who does not even understand the national accounts, no wonder he is trying to claw back his honour after a bad few days.