Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Ludlam for that question. I am pleased to advise Senator Ludlam and the Senate that this government can walk and chew gum at the same time. This is a government which has a plan to build a stronger economy and create more jobs at the same time as being focused on repairing the budget mess that we inherited from our predecessors. This is a government which will have to fix the mess we inherited from the Labor-Green administration of the past three years on so many levels. When Labor went into government in December 2007, unemployment in Western Australia was 3.3 per cent. Unemployment today after the Labor-Green mining tax and the Labor-Green carbon tax is 5.9 per cent.