Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Payne made some initial comments today with regard to five years of the Gillard Labor government. I, for one, am very proud to be part of the Gillard government, and I think the past five years have been extremely good for Australia considering we have been through the global financial crisis and those on the opposite side did not want to support any of the bills we brought before parliament to help solve that.

I would like to point out that IMF Article IV on 16 November 2012 also refers to the past five years—that is, the past five years that we have had a Labor government. The quote is that five years on both the economy and the financial sector continue to outperform most of their peers. Those on the other side are scuttlebutting again, trying to come in here and scare the voters and the people of Australia that they are the only ones who know how to do anything and they are the only ones who know how to get it right. They need to listen to some of these quotes.

Maybe they could go and look up the IMF report in regard to economic management—the same article, Article IV, of 16 November 2012. It states that government's:

… 'adept handling of the fallout from the GFC, prudent economic management, and strong supervision of the financial sector' has kept Australia 'on the dwindling list of AAA rated countries'.

That is right—Australia is still a AAA rated country.

I find the attempts by the opposition at rewriting history and crystal ball gazing rather entertaining at times, but I have to say that today's input by Senator Mason was possibly some of the best I have seen from him. He often has us laughing in Senate estimates but today his—as Senator Marshall referred to it—evangelical sermon, with those in the congregation chanting there behind him to push him on, was quite something else.

The recent midyear review shows that the Gillard government is on track to return the budget to surplus and that the fundamentals of the Australian economy are strong despite the GFC and global turmoil. We have just seen the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook return the budget to surplus with billions of dollars in savings and we are on track to deliver that.

The pessimists on the other side of this chamber who constantly talk down the Australian economy should take pride in what this country has achieved in the face of those very challenging global conditions and the structural changes around them. We have completed a remarkable 21 years of economic growth—a stunning achievement unmatched by any other advanced economy to date; but those on the other side just come in here scaremongering and try to deny that.

We have an enviable combination of solid growth, low unemployment, contained inflation, strong public finances, solid consumption and an investment outlook that is still strong. At 3.25 per cent, we have lower official interest rates than at any time under the last coalition government, helping millions of families and small businesses. Australia has only the 51st-largest population in the world, but we have overtaken Spain to become the 12th-largest economy; we have overtaken Spain, Mexico and South Korea since this government came to office. The Australian economy is the envy of the developed world and the exaggeration and spin that we constantly get from that side of the chamber should be tempered by some facts, as opposed to their rhetoric.

As Senator Marshall also said, we have created over 800,000 jobs since we were first elected. From July this year we will be giving working families a tax cut so they get more money in their fortnightly pay cheques. Economists in the private sector have explicitly made the point that the growth outlook contained in MYEFO is reasonable and in line with their own forecasts. On 22 October, Westpac chief economist Bill Evans, said:

They have cut their growth forecast by a quarter of a percentage point. That is now in line with our own forecast and we of course support this view.

UBS chief economist Scott Haslem stated, on October 22, that 'the government's growth forecasts seem reasonable.' Finally, HSBC chief economist Paul Bloxham stated:

I think these numbers look fairly sensible in the scheme of things.

We know we are coming to the end of the parliamentary year. We know that those on the other side just want to carry on with their scare campaigns and smear campaigns—the attack-dog mentality they have been going on with all year— (Time expired)