Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

The Rudd government has set about modernising the economy and increasing its capacity so that we can meet the big challenges, withstand international turbulence and deliver for Australian families. The truth is that the Rudd government inherited an economy shackled by poor productivity and capacity constraints, which have fuelled high inflation. These are facts—not political opinion. They are cold, hard data produced by the ABS and the RBA. Fact 1: when the government was elected, inflation was running at a 16-year high. The RBA is projecting inflation to remain elevated until 2010. Fact 2: when the government was elected, interest rates had risen 10 times. That is right. Interest rates had risen 10 times in a row, and were the second highest amongst major advanced economies. Fact 3: average annual productivity growth over the last five years has been lower than in any equivalent period in at least the last 16 years—lowest in the last 16 years. In the last year of the Howard-Costello government, productivity growth was zero. Zero! Fact 4: since 2004-05, Commonwealth spending has grown, on average, at around four per cent per year in real terms—more rapidly than in any other four-year period in the past decade and a half. Fact 5: at the time of the election, despite the best terms of trade in 50 years, we have generated 5½ years of monthly trade deficits—the longest sequence in Australia’s economic history. When it comes to the opposition’s economic legacy and the challenges that we face, the speech made by the shadow Treasurer shows that he is in a state of denial. In his uncontrollable arrogance, he reckons—