Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

everything I said. He will even support my comments about the Queensland State of Origin victory last night. For some reason, I do not know why the shadow—he might become a shadow minister in the many decades ahead, but I am not sure if that is the case. I know that he was a minister in a previous government, a government that was too horrendous for us to even contemplate thinking about. But I do wish him well. He is a good man. It is a shame that he is in the wrong political party, but in our great democracy that is one that thing we can do—we can join the political party of our choice. It is a shame that he is not thought to be good enough by his leader to be on the front bench of his party.

Anyway, the experiences of the past have been that a Labor government—the Keating Labor government, if I dare utter the name of that former Prime Minister—within the space of a single term turned our economy into an economy that was on the cusp of being a basket case economy. And it has taken more than a decade for a conservative government to retrieve the nation, led by leaders who are real fiscal believers—to lead and to resurrect it.

I want to give an example for the people of Ryan, whom, when I give a speech in the parliament, I have great honour in representing as a 26-year resident of the electorate, someone who grew up in the electorate, who went to school and university there and who lives in the wonderful suburb of Taringa with my family, where I intend to bring up my son for a long time to come. The Ryan electorate would, I am sure, like to know that unemployment jumped from six per cent to 10 per cent in just over 18 months under the former Labor government and it took the Howard government some eight years to get it to fall to under six per cent. Under Labor, government debt, government unemployment, all skyrocketed. Debt skyrocketed from $17 billion to $96 billion in just five years—a remarkable mismanagement of the Australian economy by a Labor government. Interest rates have risen to over 10 per cent pretty much every time Labor has been in power in the last three decades and, at the end of the day, it really affects people right across the country, especially young families. So we must always focus on this.

The 2007-08 budget would simply not have been possible without the strong economy that we enjoy today. Ryan residents will, I am sure, be very familiar with the current strength of our economy, with an expected growth rate of 3¾ per cent in 2007-08 and a net government debt of zero dollars, compared to the $96 billion debt inherited by this government in 1996.

I should draw to the attention of my colleague the member for Canning, in particular, who would be interested to know—as will my constituents in the Ryan electorate—that when we came to government we inherited $96 billion of Labor debt, but I asked the Parliamentary Library to do a little bit of research on this and they came up with a very interesting figure. In particular, I draw this to the attention of coalition members, because it might be something that they can usefully take back to their electorates. I will continue in my future brochures to draw this to the attention of the taxpayers of Ryan and indeed to the future voters of Ryan, because it directly affects them.

When we came to office in 1996, with $96 billion of Labor debt, that represented $9,073 per taxpayer. It represented $5,230 per Australian. In 1996 I was 26 years old. I owed $9,073. My sister Catherine, who was 16 at the time, owed $5,230 because she was not a taxpayer at the time. In 1996, my brother, at age 23—I should give him a plug; he is one of this country’s finest young neurosurgeons and the health department of the Queensland government is desperate for him not to go overseas because they only have a handful of neurosurgeons—owed $9,073, as a taxpayer. So if you were five years old, 10 years old or 15 years old in 1996, you owed $5,230. If you were a taxpayer in 1996, with $96 billion of collective Australian debt of the government of the day, you owed $9,073. That is a very interesting figure.

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