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

I am sorry, Senator Fifield—your smart alec contributions as well. Those opposite were completely uninterested in talking about Australian jobs. Let us hear a few statistics that those opposite do not want to talk about. How about an unemployment rate of 5.4 per cent? How about 800,000 jobs being created since we came to government? It has gone very quiet over there. They do not want to talk about that. Let us talk about the size of the economy. Our economy is 13 per cent larger than it was when we came to government, prior to the global financial crisis—something those opposite lied about to pretend it did not occur. Those opposite like to scrub the GFC from the economic history of the nation and the globe, saying that somehow it did not really happen. The reality is that it did.

What have we achieved in this country—government, business and employees working together? An economy 13 per cent larger than it was at the end of 2007. There are comparable economies that still have not got back to the same level of output, that are still not the same size they were over five years ago. Have a look at some economies overseas. Senator Brandis and Mr Abbott all love to look to the United Kingdom and they talk about all the wonderful things that we should import from the UK—