Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Hansard source

What I can explain is that the Australian economy has faced a number of global economic headwinds, and everybody other than the Labor Party understands that. We are an open trading economy. If you look at what's happening in economies around the world, our economy continues to grow and continues to generate more jobs. There have been 1.4 million new jobs under our government, with, in particular, the highest workforce participation on record, equal highest workforce participation among women, 100,000 new jobs for young people in a very short time, welfare dependency as a share of the working-age population at its lowest in 30 years and a AAA credit rating which has been reaffirmed by the three leading rating agencies. We are one of only 10 countries with that rating.

All of these arguments that the Labor Party are now throwing at us are all ones the Labor Party were putting to us in the lead-up to the last election, and the Australian people judged that there was a better opportunity for them to get ahead under our policies than under the alternative. So the Labor Party can try to run this argument as long as they want, but the truth is, yes, we are facing challenges and, yes, our government have a plan to ensure we are resilient and in the best possible position to deal with those challenges. Where other economies are going backwards, our economy continues to grow and create better opportunities for families to get ahead. You've always got to look at what the alternative scenario would've been—