Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister outline to the House how the Morrison government is working to bring Australians together to confront the economic and health crises facing our nation so we can restore livelihoods and create jobs?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Robertson for her question and I thank her and all the members of this House for their leadership in their local communities during what is continuing to be a very testing time for all Australians in all parts of the country. We are living through these uncertain times, the most uncertain that most Australians have ever experienced in their lifetime and certainly that the country has experienced since the Second World War and the Great Depression. As Australians look around the world and see the events around the world, I have no doubt that Australians are both glad to be Australian and to be in Australia at this time. Despite what are the very real difficulties and the very real hardships that Australians are facing, they know that, in this country, as a result of their efforts and the combined efforts of governments around the country, including our own, we are making the best of what is a very difficult situation, and our performance bears that out. Our health performance puts Australia out as a global leader in the response to the global coronavirus pandemic. On our economic performance, despite the fact of the negative quarter, 0.3 per cent down in March, we know that developed economies around the world are experiencing far worse—five times worse; in some cases, more than 10 times worse. Australia's health response and economic response are ensuring that Australians can get through this crisis better than most, in all of the countries with similar characteristics to Australia's. They're developed economies with health systems, with sophisticated economies, with social security systems, yet ours is experiencing an impact of the coronavirus far less than those. In countries like ours, their death rate is 100 times that being experienced in Australia, in terms of COVID-19, and I've set out to you that we're not only leading in terms of the health response but we are leading in terms of the economic response, putting in place the economic lifelines that are proving so effective and so important for businesses, for employers, and for employees in particular, as they go through these uncertain times. But most of all what we are doing is bringing Australians together—suppliers and retailers, customers and small businesses, employers and employees, landlords and tenants, doctors and patients, experts and policy advisers, state and federal leaders, and state and federal governments and local governments, working together to actually bring Australians through this crisis, and that's what we will continue to do. The decisions that we will make and the economic changes that we will put in place over the next two years and five years will determine the economic success of the next 30 years, and our government is up to that task. Australians are getting through this together and we will continue to. (Time expired)