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

I reject the idea of any concept of premature withdrawal. What this government has done is put in place an intervention in the Australian economy and in private businesses, unprecedented in its scale. The investment that we have put into the Australian economy has been unprecedented in its scale, in the dollars involved and in the nature of the intervention.

And, of course, as we tightened the eligibility for JobKeeper, as the rates around JobKeeper declined, those opposite came in here each time and predicted doom and gloom. They told us at the end of September that we would see catastrophe at the end of December yet what we have seen is the Australian economy has continued to grow the number of jobs. The unemployment rate has continued to go down. Now, there will be difficult times ahead, no doubt about it, but— (Time expired)