Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Anyone listening to the debate in here would be questioning. They would really be thinking about the grim reaper's hand of death already on the shoulder of the Australian economy and on Australian business and Australian people. This could not be further from the truth. The opposition can wish it all they want. The opposition can wish for the end of business in Australia. They can wish for a bad economy. But they are not going to get their wish from this government. This government will continue to work hard to deliver a surplus budget, to deliver a strong economy, to deliver jobs for Australians, to invest in our schools, to help families with the cost of living, to do the things that governments are meant to do to assist not only the economy but also to make sure that ordinary people—people at home listening to this, people that go to work every day, people that educate their kids—get a hand-up, assistance and support from their government, not this negative claptrap that we hear from the opposition.

It does not get any more palpable when you come into this place at question time. Every word that is uttered by the opposition is about negativity. It is about bringing down the economy; it is about ramming down confidence. At the same time that they are talking down the economy, they are wishing for Australia to become like Greece. This is their wish because, in their minds, the faster that would happen the quicker they would get government. That is their strategy and their plan. It is to bring down the economy. Let us burn the place down because by doing that we will have proved something and we will get to government quicker. This government is not going to do that. We are not going to sit by idly. We going to do the tough things and the hard things. We are going to do the things that are necessary for this economy. And you might ask why. Why would we do this? There is a very simple answer: because people deserve to keep working. They deserve to have a job, and that is what we are doing. And I think it is pretty well reflected in the unemployment figures. Look anywhere in the world, pick a country and make a comparison with Australia. You cannot wish that away. You cannot wish the numbers away, because it is the same methodology that the Australian Bureau of Statistics have used for 30 years. That same set of statistics and data say that there is now only 4.9 per cent unemployment in this country, down from 5.1 per cent. That is a record that is better than when the Howard government was in, better than the golden years when the rivers of gold used to flow to Canberra. They had more money than they could ever budget for. They used to predict a surplus and it was always big, but they did not have a clue how much money was coming in to the economy. They were good days. The whole world was peaking. Tax was a lot higher; people paid more. It did not matter which measure you used, everyone paid more tax. In fact, people paid more for their mortgages as well; interest rates were higher.

But in tough economic conditions this government has been able to do the hard yards, the hard work—nose to the grindstone. Not for us the death hand of the grim reaper trying to choke the confidence of Australians, trying to choke small business, turning up at some poor small business and telling them that they have nothing for the future, that they should just lay everybody off and give up—when the next day those same businesses announce growth, they announce new profits and good things happening. This is all that the other side look for. They look for the doom and the gloom. They wish it every day. I can see the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, kneeling down beside his bed at night and saying, 'God bless Mum, God bless dad, God bless Australia and, please God, wreck the Australian economy so I can become the Prime Minister,' because the quicker he thinks he can wreck this economy the quicker he believes that he personally will benefit and become the Prime Minister.

But nothing could be further from the truth, as you will see if you pick any report in the world—I am very confident about picking any report in the world. These guys are looking every single day and thinking, 'Can we just find one little bit of negative reporting on Australia?' They cannot turn to the rating agencies because for, the first time in our history, in over 100 years, this Australian economy under this Labor government has managed a AAA rating, the highest possible rating you can get across all three agencies. Where are the geniuses on the other side? Hang on, one of them just walked in. By the way, my offer is still on the table: if you want to run faster, I am happy to give you a few tips on how on this side we run the economy a little bit faster, how we speed things up; how we get investment into the country; how we keep people in jobs and how we make a difference to people's lives. In the end there is a measure of difference. It is called 'people having a job'. It is called 'being able to pay the mortgage', which of course is cheaper under Labor, because people, on average, are paying at least $3,000 a year less.

The shadow Treasurer shakes his head. So what? He shakes his head at everything; it would not matter what I said. If I said, 'Do you want an ice cream?' he would say no. It does not matter what I say, he would shake his head so it does not worry me too much. The reality is that the data does not lie, nor does the economy, nor does business growth, nor does the half trillion dollars of confidence—dollars, investment, confidence. So while they are saying that the coal industry is dead, energy is dead, retail is dead, manufacturing is dead—you name it, everything is dead—and that on 1 July we will all wake up with a scorched earth and nothing left, of course, we all know that that is just hollow rhetoric designed to do one thing. And this is the sad part: small business people are out there trying to create more work, keep themselves and their workers employed and do something for their families—in fact, trying to do something for the economy. But every day they hear negativity from the Leader of the Opposition. He cannot run fast enough to get out of this place. He is banging into walls to get out of this place so he can talk down the economy.

I will tell you who has got some confidence in our economy. I will give you some idea. Every other country in the world looks at us and says, 'We'd hack off our right arms to have just a little piece of your good economy.' Who else has got confidence in our economy? We have on this side. We have confidence in our economy and we will keep working hard to grow it to make sure people have got jobs. Who else has got confidence in our economy? All of those people who have poured half a trillion dollars worth of their money into our economy based on one thing: they believe we are growing, they believe we have a bright future, they believe it is good. I will tell you what, there is another interesting group of people who think we have some opportunities, some good news, some growth. While the Leader of the Opposition sits here and talks down the end of the earth as we know it, Liberal National Party members on his side are out there buying the very stocks and shares of the things he is talking—

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