Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am sorry, Mr Deputy President. I note that Senator Hogg would not have let me get away with that either. Let us look at some of the examples. Let us look at the figures for people employed. If we are going to talk about an economy which they say is slowing, let us look at some of the statistics. In December 2007 there were 10,607,100 people employed. The latest figures that we have available from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that in July 2008 10,721,500 were employed—a substantial increase in employed persons. That is not the sign of a slowing economy.

The average weekly time earnings in the December quarter 2007 was $1,111. In the June quarter of 2008 it was $1,131.40. Those figures are taken from the ABS statistics. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for November 2007, when we were elected to government, was 4.5 per cent. In July 2008 it was 4.3 per cent. The long-term unemployment rate in November 2007 was 14.1 per cent. In July 2008 it was 13.7 per cent. The number of long-term unemployed persons in November 2007 was 70,300. In July 2008 it was 68,200—tracking down.

Senator Fifield wants to get up and mislead the Senate with this general spin that they learnt when in government, when they did not have to do anything of substance but just spun the line that they were great economic managers. What they did was take their foot off the accelerator; they took their eye off the ball—and we can use a million sporting analogies as we have just been through the Olympics; they could be endless. What they did was forget to manage the economy. They started to believe their own rhetoric and spin. Even though they had been warned by the Reserve Bank, they left us with record high inflation. We have to address that, and so it was a tough budget.

But let us not forget that that budget also delivered $46.7 billion in tax cuts to working families. Senator Fifield comes in here and says that we give nothing back and it is just about some tax grabs—which are in a number of very small areas and are really about tax equalisation and some adjustments, and if I have time I will get into some of the detail of that—but there were $46.7 billion in tax cuts to working Australians. Do not come in here and tell us that it is all about a tax grab. Nothing could be further from the truth.

This government has built a strong budget surplus of $22 billion to help put downward pressure on interest rates. And what is happening? It has been flagged by the RBA that interest rates should start to drop. We cannot wait for the day that we will reap the benefits of our tough budget and our $22 billion surplus. We are responsible economic managers and are starting to put that downward pressure on interest rates. (Time expired)