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

In the face of a worsening global financial environment, and indeed the onset of a global recession, we have taken decisive action to support the Australian economy. We outlined the economic security plan before Christmas. We outlined a COAG package. We outlined a $6.1 billion long-term plan to assist the Australian automobile industry and associated component industries. The world economy is going into recession. This is driving Australians onto the unemployment queues. What this stimulus package is designed to do is to support and protect jobs and to try to ameliorate that. So let’s be clear about this: the economic illiteracy of those opposite—