Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

It is disappointing to start the new parliamentary year with a question that is so full of misleading elements and the Labor Party trying so much to run a consistent approach to a scare campaign yet again, even on matters of advertising. It is important for Australians to understand the support that's been available to them through the COVID-19 pandemic, to have the health advice they need through the COVID-19 pandemic and to have the information they deserve through the COVID-19 pandemic. There are a range of very sound, good reasons as to why the Australian public need and deserve information through this pandemic.

Further, the policy measures that our government has put in place, always set out against the principles of being proportionate, targeted and temporary, have served Australia to put it in a position to achieve economic outcomes that are the envy of much of the rest of the world. In our country we have seen 800,000 jobs come back during the course of the pandemic, from the initial collapse. In Australia we should be proud of the fact that we have seen the effective unemployment rate, which peaked around 15 per cent, come back to a position where it is on par with the overall unemployment rate of around 6.6 per cent. These are the achievements from having put in place not only policy responses that are effective but also policy responses that are true to the principles we set out—that they would be temporary and targeted to the circumstances, and that we will continue to adapt and adjust to those circumstances as we have successfully done at every stage of this global crisis.