Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I am afraid the honourable member just does not understand the fact that Australia's income has fallen as a direct result of and directly related to the fact that we have seen significant commodity prices come off. It is so irresponsible for the member for McMahon to talk like that because if he were to apply that test to real gross domestic income then there would have been what he calls three recessions under the last six years of Labor. You see, this is the problem: they have got no sense of history. But they were all there. They are myth makers. They do not understand that when there is a significant fall in the terms of trade it does have an impact. It has an impact directly on real gross domestic income. Labor do not understand that they are the problem, not the solution. We are the solution. We are the ones who are trying to strengthen the Australian economy. We are the ones who are trying to everything possible to ensure that the good news keeps coming in relation to some of the key economic data.

See this speech in context