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

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer outline to the House how the Morrison government's strong and decisive economic management will ensure that we can look forward to our economy continuing its comeback from the COVID-19 recession?

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Moncrieff for her question. She was a lifesaver, a small business person, an author and a musician—a wonderful range of experiences—before coming to this place. The member for Moncrieff, like those on this side of the House, understands that 2020 has been a year like no other. Australia and the world have been hit by the biggest economic shock since the Great Depression—a once-in-a-century pandemic. The equivalent of around 600 million people globally have lost their jobs. Here in Australia 1.3 million Australians either lost their jobs or saw their working hours reduced to zero early on in the pandemic. In the June quarter we saw GDP fall by seven per cent, the single biggest fall that we have seen in a quarter in Australia's history.

Since that time, our economy, our nation, has been on a journey—a journey of recovery. Eighty per cent of the 1.3 million people who either lost their jobs or saw their working hours reduced to zero are now back at work and 178,000 jobs were created last month, and more than 50 per cent of those jobs went to women. Today job ads for the month of November are up by 14 per cent, following an increase of 12 per cent in October, seeing the job ad numbers come back and recovering about 90 per cent of their fall. And, as the Prime Minister said, there were two million fewer Australian workers and 450,000 fewer Australian businesses on JobKeeper in October compared to September.

We've seen in 12 of the last 13 weeks consumer confidence increase. We've seen Australia's AAA credit rating being reaffirmed and we saw in the national accounts for the quarter of September a 3.3 per cent increase, the single largest increase in September quarterly growth since 1976. That is the comeback that we are seeing right across the country.

These numbers are more than just numbers on a page. They are human lives. I had the opportunity in the electorate of Reid to go and visit Salvatore at Pasticceria Papa: more than 100 staff, and he used JobKeeper. But now he has graduated off JobKeeper and the customers are coming back at Five Dock in Sydney—another business that has graduated off JobKeeper. So, under the coalition the jobs are coming back.