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

I thank Senator Feeney very much for the question. Just over a year ago we were debating in this chamber the Rudd Labor government’s $42 billion Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan, which was passed by the parliament against the strident opposition of the Liberal and National parties and, I have to say, with the support of the Greens, Family First and Senator Xenophon.

What did we see last week? We saw further evidence of just how effective the stimulus plan was in terms of the Australian economy. The national accounts for the December quarter of 2009, which were released last week, showed that the Australian economy grew by 0.9 per cent in the quarter and continued to outperform almost every other advanced economy. In fact, Australia last year had four quarters of economic growth and through the last calendar year it had 2.7 per cent economic growth. That is in contrast to almost every other advanced economy, which went backwards during the last calendar year.

Before the stimulus package, when reductions in interest rates and a range of other decisive actions were taken, it was predicted that the Australian economy would shrink—that it would go backwards by 0.7 per cent—but, rather than going backwards like most other advanced economies in the world, the Australian economy grew by 2.7 per cent. Thousands of businesses were saved and hundreds of thousands of jobs were saved as a consequence of the range of actions taken by the Reserve Bank and by the Rudd Labor government.

Unfortunately, that stimulus package was vehemently opposed by those opposite. Their argument was: ‘Let’s wait and see. Let’s do nothing.’ We know what happened to those countries that did nothing and waited and saw. (Time expired)