Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer update the House on how the Morrison government's decisive economic management is ensuring that the Australian economy's comeback from the COVID-19 recession continues to gain strength?

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

I thank the member for Longman for his question. Like many on this side of the House, he has a background in small business. He's not just a good guy; he owned a Good Guys franchise before getting into golf clubs!

He, like others on this side of the House, understands the seriousness of the economic shock that Australia has faced—indeed, that the world has faced. To put it in perspective, during the GFC the global economy shrank by 0.1 per cent. It is the IMF's expectation that this calendar year the global economy will shrink by 4.4 per cent. Early on in this pandemic, we saw 1.3 million Australians either lose their jobs or see their working hours reduced to zero. But the good news for the Australian economy—indeed, for the Australian community—is that the comeback is on. The comeback is on and, today, consumer confidence was up again—1.7 per cent. For 13 out of the last 14 weeks we have seen consumer confidence up.

And business confidence was up by nine points. Both consumer confidence and business confidence are now to pre-pandemic levels, and 80 per cent of the 1.3 million Australians who either lost their jobs or saw their working hours reduced to zero are now back at work. Last month, 178,000 jobs were created and today there are two million fewer Australians on JobKeeper and 450,000 fewer Australian businesses on JobKeeper than in the month of September. And the effective unemployment rate has come down from 14.9 per cent to 7.4 per cent.

These statistics tell a story right across the country of people getting back to work. Businesses right across the country are coming off—graduating off—JobKeeper and getting their employees back to work. Our intention is to see more jobs created across the economy. That's what we outlined in the budget: tax cuts for more than 11½ million people; the JobMaker hiring credit, which will enable younger people to get off the unemployment queues and to get into work; a 50 per cent subsidy for apprentices, so we could see 100,000 new apprenticeships across the country; infrastructure projects brought forward as well as new infrastructure projects supported; and an investment allowance that will help support billions of dollars in new investment by businesses across the economy, which will be good news for small businesses. Small businesses will buy, will sell, will install and will maintain that new equipment and machinery.

The Morrison government is focused on creating more jobs; that is what we're seeing across the country today.