Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In taking note of answers today, I want to pick up on a couple of comments that Senator McAllister just made regarding the concern that Australians have for their economic position. To be honest, I agree with Senator McAllister: I think Australians are certainly concerned about their current economic position and their livelihoods, as you would only expect during a pandemic that has had catastrophic impacts upon our economy. But also—and here is where I think the views of Senator McAllister and I might start to diverge—I think most Australians are confident that the plan the Morrison coalition government has to handle the economy coming out of the coronavirus crisis is a good one, and that's because the government have been able to demonstrate to the Australian people that we are capable of injecting jobs into the economy; we are capable of strong, responsible budgetary management; and, most importantly, we are capable of doing both of those things concurrently, which is more than my friends on the opposition benches did when they were in government.

As Senator Cormann said in his answer today, 'This government is about jobs, jobs and jobs,' and that is something that we delivered on leading into the coronavirus crisis. We injected 1.5 million jobs into the Australian economy, and I am incredibly proud to be part of a government that successfully did that. As I have said in this place many times, the reason I nominated to be a candidate as a senator for Tasmania is that I have seen too many young Tasmanians have to leave home because they can't get jobs locally. Being a young Australian, I know that, coming out of the coronavirus crisis, many young Australians are concerned about their livelihoods and they are concerned about being able to get a job or keep a job. That's why the plan that this government has to ensure that the Australian job market can recover from the coronavirus crisis is so important. I don't want to see us lose the momentum that we have, particularly in my own state of Tasmania, where, as we know, with state and federal Liberal governments, our state has come a very long way in the last five or six years, and I don't want to see us go back to the dark old economic days.

Obviously, the government's focus at the moment is on the health and wellbeing of Australians, and we are seeing great success on the health front. But, as I said, we know that the impacts of coronavirus across the economy have been severe. Businesses and households are facing increased uncertainty, and economic activity has slowed. That's why we have put an economic support package in place to provide timely support to affected workers, businesses and the broader community, and this has helped to keep Australians in work and businesses in business. We have put a floor under the economy and we will lay the foundation for a strong economic recovery coming out of the coronavirus crisis. We are focused on reopening and rebuilding. We need to get businesses back open, enable Australians to go back to work and ensure consumers and businesses have the confidence to return to normal activities. That is why the HomeBuilder policy is so important. It was why our JobKeeper package was so important. These are the measures that the Australian government, the Morrison coalition government, have put in place to ensure that we can rebound from the coronavirus crisis into just as prosperous and successful a nation and successful an economy as we were in prior to this.

I turned 30 years old just a couple of weeks ago. When I was thinking about this significant birthday, I did reflect on the fact that so many Australians of my age will most likely experience a recession for the first time at some point over the next six months. It's been 29 years since Australia last had a recession. That is incredibly hard, and it will be hard on young Australians to navigate their way through that and the stresses that that will put on their work prospects. But young Australians also know that this government has a strong economic policy in place to help us recover from the coronavirus, and that is built on the trust that we have with the Australian people—the trust that is built on our record of creating 1.5 million jobs in just over five years. That is the record of this government, and it is because of that record that the Australian people have faith in us as a government to rebuild following the coronavirus crisis, to make sure that more young Australians can keep themselves in jobs for now and into the foreseeable future.