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

r BIRMINGHAM (—) (): Australia is one of the few countries in the world that, after the COVID-19 recession of last year, saw its economy grow back to be larger than it was prior to the pandemic starting. Whilst the delta strain and the lockdowns across parts of the eastern states have caused an impact, on the whole our labour market remains strong. Despite the havoc of the delta variant, the outlook for the Australian economy is incredibly strong. This was reaffirmed last week by one of the three major global credit-rating agencies, Fitch, who not only reaffirmed Australia's AAA credit rating but indeed upgraded our outlook. They had previously indicated that Australia was on the negative watch list. They've removed Australia from that, reaffirming the AAA credit rating, removing that negative watch list and pointing to the strength of the Australian economy and to their confidence in terms of the jobs rebound that we've seen before when coming out of COVID lockdowns and that we will see again. Australia stands tall in the world for saving both lives and livelihoods, and that is something that we should all be grateful for. (Time expired)