Vince Connelly (Stirling, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer please inform the House how the Morrison government's strong stewardship of our economy is making Australia one of the best positioned countries in the world to recover from the global COVID-19 recession?

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

I thank the member for Stirling for his service in the Australian Defence Force and for his work in the corporate sector and for supporting policies in this place that have delivered tax cuts to more than 70,000 members of his electorate. He, like others on this side of the House, understands that the Australian economy is recovering strongly from the biggest hit to it since the Great Depression, with the first pandemic in a century.

Today I can inform the House that job ads were up for a ninth consecutive month. Job ads have doubled since April. Yesterday I informed the House that payroll jobs data for the fortnight was up by 1.3 per cent and across all states and territories it was up and back to the level it was a year ago. On Monday I informed the House that the JobKeeper data for the December quarter was in from the ATO which showed that 2.1 million Australians had graduated from JobKeeper and 520,000 Australian businesses had come off JobKeeper in the December quarter compared to the period prior. In the great state of Western Australia, that fall was 70 per cent. In South Australia, it was 67 per cent. In Tasmania, it was 65 per cent. In Queensland, it was 64 per cent. In New South Wales, it was 60 per cent. In Victoria, it was 44 per cent. That was the number of people coming off JobKeeper in the December quarter.

We have also seen consumer and business confidence recover to its pre-pandemic levels. We have seen a strong take-up of the HomeBuilder program, with more than 80,000 applications. We saw more than 80,000 motor vehicle sales in January alone, up 10 per cent year on year, helping to be driven by the instant asset write-off. This is what's happening on our worksites, in our car yards and on the building sites. Jobs are coming back and economic activity is increasing. I know that the member for Stirling's electorate has lots of graduates of JobKeeper, including Wayne Bowen, who's got three surf shops in Scarborough. He had 14 on JobKeeper at three surf shops, and all have graduated. If you want to ride a wave or get a board, go down to see Wayne at Scarborough. Yesterday we were speaking about JAX Tyres Mitchelton, in the electorate of Ryan. If you want to go and get a new set of wheels, go down and see Dean and he will look after you. (Time expired)