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

The budget that the Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister delivered last night was a Labor budget to keep the economy strong, to make the right investments, the smart investments, for our future and to ensure that every Australian gets a fair go. Whilst a government cannot choose all of the economic circumstances it confronts, it can choose its priorities. On this side of the parliament, we chose to support jobs and growth, we chose a stronger economy and we chose to build a smarter nation and a fairer society.

I want to turn first to the strong economic performance of the Australian nation. I know those opposite hate the good news on jobs, don't they? Who would have thought patriotic Australians would actually hate job creation, would actually hate the fact that over 950,000 jobs have been created since this government came to power and would hate the fact that the economy is 13 per cent bigger than when the government was elected? Who would have thought those on the other side would want to go around saying what a dreadful position it is that Australia has one of the strongest economies in the developed world! They do not want to acknowledge that. But even Mr Howard, on Friday, said:

When the Prime Minister and the Treasurer and others tell you that the Australian economy is doing better than most—they are right.

It is amazing. I have not heard John Howard praise the Labor government before and I disagree with almost everything he did, but I will take the recognition—the recognition of the strength of the Australian economy. Of course, overnight we also saw, as I have mentioned, the AAA credit rating reaffirmed by all three credit rating agencies. (Time expired)