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

It's not up to the government to comment. Obviously the IMF makes its judgement based on its assessment of global economic trends and pressures on the global economy. Obviously it has made a judgement based on global trade tensions and geopolitical issues that everybody knows about, that a further downgrade in global growth was warranted, and has made some judgement on the flow-on consequences on various countries around the world.

Australia is a particularly globally exposed open-trading economy. Obviously what happens in the global economy is particularly relevant to us. The circumstance that is unique to Australia compared to others is that not only did we have to deal with a significant flood early in the year but we are also dealing with the economic impact of a significant drought in large parts of Australia. On our side of politics, we understand this. And we understand that it is important to stick to the plan to build a stronger economy into the future because that is the best way to ensure that Australians today and into the future have the best possible opportunity to get ahead—and that is what we're doing.

If we had adopted the Labor position that was taken to the last election, the economy today would be weaker and unemployment would be higher. In fact, very soon we'll be hearing from Senator Cash about the employment figures today, and what you can see is that, under our government, more new jobs are being created—more than 1.4 million jobs since we were first elected. Employment growth is at a record level. There is employment growth of 2.6 per cent compared to a forecast of 1.5 per cent. The number of Australians in jobs is at a record high, the number of women in jobs is at a record high, workforce participation is at a record high and real wages growth is higher than it was when Labor lost government and above the long-term trend.

The economy under the coalition is in a stronger position than it would have been under Labor. That is what— (Time expired)