Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer confirm Australia's economic performance in the September quarter is the worst out of the 28 OECD countries that have reported? If the government had done its job on vaccines and quarantine, wouldn't the economy have grown like the others and not shrunk?

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

I can confirm to the House that, other than two major advanced economies, Australia has had the strongest recovery across the world—a stronger recovery than we've seen in the United Kingdom, a stronger recovery than we've seen in Canada, a stronger recovery than we've seen in Germany, a stronger recovery than we've seen in Italy and a stronger recovery than we've seen in Japan. Credit is due to the Australian people—the hard work of 26 million Australians who have faced the biggest economic shock since the Great Depression and who have faced the first pandemic in a century.

We all remember those images last March of thousands of our fellow Australians lining up outside Centrelink, having lost their jobs, and businesses fearful of losing not only their business but also their homes. The Morrison government responded with the strongest economic support this country has ever seen: around $300 billion of economic support, more than all the states and territories put together. Programs like JobKeeper saved 700,000 jobs. There was the cash flow boost; support payments to pensioners, carers, veterans and others on income support; business investment incentives that see business investment 9.1 per cent higher through the year in the national accounts; and programs like HomeBuilder, which was ridiculed by those opposite. Together with our other policies, HomeBuilder has seen 320,000 Australians get into a home in the last three years. We saw dwelling investment up in today's national accounts, and dwelling investment is 11.4 per cent higher through the year.

All the time we're providing economic support to Australians, do you know what else we're doing? Something those opposite would never do: providing tax cuts and tax relief. The biggest tax cuts that Australians have ever seen. Tax cuts for families and tax cuts for small business and business investment incentives. While those opposite took $387 billion of higher taxes to the Australian people, we have been supporting them with lower taxes and with income and business support. The net result is that unemployment today is lower than when we came to government.