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

I completely reject the premise of the question. Real wages growth is stronger today that it was in Labor's last year in government. And, indeed, we turned around the rapidly rising unemployment rate that we inherited from the Labor Party, with about 1.5 million new jobs created. Workforce participation is the second highest on record, female workforce participation is the highest on record and welfare dependency of the working-age population is the lowest it's ever been.

But, of course, Australia is facing some global economic headwinds. We are dealing with some significant domestic economic headwinds, including, of course, significant drought in large parts of regional Australia, which is having an impact. And, yet, do you know what? The Australian economy continues to grow. We are in our 29th year of continuous growth. If we had adopted the policy prescriptions of the Labor Party—the socialist, high-taxing, antibusiness agenda that Labor took to the last election—the economy today would be weaker. Employment would be higher, and wages would be lower. (Time expired)