Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

The OECD expects Australia's unemployment rate to remain low next year, and the only people in this country who would not be positive about that are, of course, those opposite. Australia, if I can remind the chamber, has had a standout record on jobs as a result of the government's actions in the worst global downturn since the Great Depression. Labor acted to save jobs and avoid recession; some 800,000 jobs have been created since this government came to power.

I return to the Leader of the Opposition's desperate stunt today. I ask this chamber: can anyone imagine John Howard stooping so low and being so desperate that the best he could do for an economic plan for the country was to rerelease a stapled version of his speeches to his own party room and pretend that is a plan for the future? I did not agree with Mr Howard, but he would never have been so desperate to engage in such a stunt. (Time expired)