Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to answer both questions—but I will leave for another time the one on cigarettes. Seriously, this is a very important day because it is one year ago today that the Labor government took decisive action and announced the implementation of its Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan, a $42 billion plan to cushion the Australian economy from what was then rapidly emerging as the worst financial and economic crisis the world has seen in some 75 years. It is also the anniversary of the day when the Liberal-National Party gave up and just determined its policy would be to sit back and do nothing about the emerging world economic and financial crisis.

It was on this day last year that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer announced the historic, long-term and targeted plan as a decisive step in the government’s response to the severe global recession. A progress report has been released by the Commonwealth Coordinator-General. It shows almost three-quarters of the infrastructure projects in the stimulus plan are completed or underway. Some 49,179 projects have been approved, 34,850 projects have commenced and 8,339 have been completed. Over half of the $42 billion stimulus package has been injected into the economy through businesses, households, and state, local government and various construction projects.

The report also confirms that, without the stimulus, unemployment in Australia would be some 200,000 greater. We would be well on the way to almost a million unemployed but for the stimulus package—