Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I start with a frank assessment of where we are as a nation, and I think it is important to look at some of the fundamentals here. Let us start with the economy and some of the key indicators in terms of how our economy is going. If we look at last year, we had a quarterly rate of economic growth of about one per cent. Then we had the budget, that infamous budget, and the economy took a massive hit. Economic growth halved, down to about 5.6 per cent; it dropped further, by about 0.3 per cent; and it is still on the way down. Economic growth is on the way down. It is falling, rather than rising.