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

I mean, the chutzpah for the Labor Party to ask the question! When we came into government, one of the terrible indicators was the rising unemployment rate. The outgoing shadow Treasurer of the Labor Party, Chris Bowen, was so concerned about what they had left behind that he said the test for the incoming coalition government was whether we can keep the unemployment rate below 6¼ per cent. I don't think he would have said that in order to give us an easy key performance indicator. I think he thought that it might have been a stretched target to try to keep the unemployment rate below 6¼ per cent. Guess what? It's at 5.2 per cent today and 1.4 million new jobs have been created under our government. Your high-taxing and high-spending agenda would have made the economy weaker and pushed up the unemployment rate, which would have caused wages to fall over time. The Australian people at the election clearly considered the alternative agendas and they knew that they were better off with our plan to build a stronger economy than with your socialist agenda.