Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I feel honoured and privileged to stand here today to respond to Senator Evans’s and the Labor Party’s motion to take note of the responses from Senator Kemp, and indeed others on this side of the chamber today, because we have in fact delivered a remarkable outcome for Australian families. This whole allegation from the Labor Party is an attack on Australian families, on older Australians and indeed on younger Australians. Labor have a blind spot. They have forgotten about the record low inflation, the record low interest rates and the record low unemployment in this country. They have forgotten about the above three per cent growth since 1996. They have forgotten about the 1.7 million new jobs in the last 10 years. They have forgotten about the 16.8 per cent increase in real wages. That is what they have forgotten. These are real wages. This is money in the pockets of Australian men and women and their families, and that benefits the whole community.

In my home state of Tasmania the figure is actually 15.9 per cent. I am very proud of that fact. Senator Minchin mentioned today government debt. It is interesting that Senator Evans did not mention or even refer to it. There was no mention of it. When Labor left office it was $96 billion. Do you know how much we were paying in interest at that time?