Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on how the Morrison government is focused on securing Australia's future by building the road to economic recovery from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic?

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

I thank the member for her question and I thank her for the tremendous work she is doing on the Gold Coast with our other members from the Gold Coast, dealing with those difficult challenges there. Whichever sector it has been—the entertainment sector, the tourism sector or the events sector—the member has been a keen advocate both directly to me and the Treasurer and to many other ministers.

Australia is making its way back. We are making our way back. There has been a more than 60 per cent recovery in the stock market since the hit of COVID-19 earlier this year. There have been 343,000 jobs have been re-established in the economy after that first hit. Fifty per cent of the losses in aggregate hours worked in this country have been recovered since that first fall. Consumer confidence has recovered 80 per cent of the losses since that time, as has business confidence, according to the NAB survey. There was a 13.5 per cent fall in loan deferrals in July, and $250 billion has been raised in bonds and T notes—with, on bonds, more than four times coverage. That has enabled us to provide JobKeeper and JobSeeker support. Because of the strong financial position of the government as we went into this crisis, it meant we could raise the funds in those markets to ensure JobKeeper, which has been a lifeline to Australians, as has JobSeeker, throughout the course of this pandemic.

But we have to focus on the road back, as well, as we continue to journey back. The Victorian wave of this pandemic has meant the stall in the recovery that we were going through—where we were on the road to recovery in June. Of course that has slowed things down. That has not just impacted Victoria but has affected other states and territories as well.

What we need to do is continue to focus on the road back. The restrictions and arrangements we have today are not things that we want to see by Christmas. What we want to know is what is going to happen when we get to not just 1 September but 1 October, 1 November, 1 December and 1 January, because our economy needs to continue on the road back and we need to continue to work together to ensure that we can open up the economy safely, just as we were doing in May and June, and as we were going to be doing into July, when we hit the big setback with that second big outbreak in Victoria. What we now need to focus on is ensuring the road back. But the road back also is a longer term road back—that is, support for training and skills, with more than $3 billion committed by this government for training and skills; affordable and reliable energy, particularly in the gas sector; infrastructure bring-forwards of almost $10 billion, whether it is in water or in roads or, indeed, in energy, where that is required; supporting manufacturing, and our defence manufacturing industries in particular; easing the cost of doing business; and supporting industrial relations flexibility— (Time expired)