Gladys Liu (Chisholm, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer remind the House how the Morrison government's focus on creating jobs and supporting livelihoods is helping to ensure a stronger Australia in 2021 and beyond?

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

I thank the member for Chisholm and I acknowledge her experience in small business and as a speech pathologist before coming to this place and joining with those on this side of the House to deliver tax cuts to more than 70,000 people in the electorate of Chisholm. That is what the member for Chisholm has helped do in this place.

Mr Gosling interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Solomon is warned!

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

Last year saw the biggest economic shock since the Great Depression. It helped create the COVID-19 recession. Since then, the Morrison government has responded with more than $250 billion in direct economic support. That's around 13 per cent of GDP. It is more than double what the states combined have committed. We saw the Reserve Bank ease monetary policy by boosting liquidity, by buying bonds in the secondary market, by cutting the cash rate. We saw 25 million Australians bond together to help suppress the virus, whether they were mums and dads at home, following the health rules, or whether they were our wonderful health workers on the front line.

The net result has been that Australia's economic recovery is now underway: 90 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. Consumer and business confidence has recovered to its pre-pandemic levels, and we saw the biggest jump in quarterly economic growth since 1976. That is why the Reserve Bank governor has said—and he has again reaffirmed it today—that the economic recovery is happening earlier and stronger than first forecast. This leaves Australia better positioned than nearly any other country in the world, with the IMF forecasting that the economic impact of COVID-19 will be much more severe in the United States; across Europe—whether it's the UK, France, Germany, Italy or Spain; in Canada; in Japan; and in nearly every other country around the world.

We acknowledge that the job is not done. There is still a lot of work to do to get Australians back into a job. But the recovery is well underway and the government's record economic support is helping Australians get back to work.