Katie Allen (Higgins, 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 strong economic management continues to set up the Australian economy to bounce back strongly as COVID-19 restrictions ease? Is the Treasurer aware of any alternative policies?

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

I thank the member for Higgins for her question and acknowledge her experience as a paediatrician at the Royal Children's Hospital for 28 years and as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences—a real achievement. The member for Higgins, like others on this side of the House, knows that, today, consumer confidence jumped for the sixth week in a row; last week, business confidence was up; job ads are now 21 per cent higher than they were at the start of the pandemic; and, last week, Fitch Ratings reaffirmed Australia's AAA credit rating and upgraded our outlook.

Today, the Reserve Bank's minutes came out for the month of October. They said that they were expecting the economy to bounce back strongly. They said that the labour market had been more resilient this year than last year and that, in New South Wales, firms were already looking to hire, ahead of those restrictions being lifted. This is the strong economic recovery that Australians can look forward to. This is the $17 billion that the Morrison government has put in to support families and businesses through the delta outbreak, which will help support a strong economic recovery.

I'm asked: are there any alternative policies? The Leader of the Opposition, in the last two years, has had two big economic ideas in his head. Last year, do you know what it was? It was the structural productivity-enhancing reform of a national drivers licence. That was going to see the Australian economy lift off! This year, we got nothing in the budget-in-reply speech, so we've been waiting. We've been waiting with bated breath, and 76 days ago, we got it: $300 cheques to people who have already had the jab. In the words of the Leader of the Opposition, this was going to be a $6 billion 'conversation starter'. He said:

What it will do is spark conversation around the workplace—around communities. 'Have you got your 300 bucks yet?' is a conversation we want.

I tell you who didn't want the conversation—his own shadow cabinet. Senator Gallagher went on Insiders on Sunday and was asked by David Speers: 'Should the government offer 300 bucks to everyone or not?' Senator Gallagher said, 'I think, probably, the time has passed for that.' It was a policy that was made on the run and it was a policy that was dumped on the run.