Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, what is remarkable on a day like this is the fact that the Leader of the Opposition cannot bring himself to say anything positive, not a single word that is positive. Here we are in the midst of the worst global economic recession in three-quarters of a century and he cannot say that when Australia produces positive growth for the first quarter of 2009 that this is a good thing. I would have thought that any person aspiring to leadership in this nation would welcome positive news for the nation. It is positive news for business, it is positive news for small business, it is positive news for people struggling to find a job and it is positive news for local communities—but we are not out of the woods yet. I make no apology whatsoever for being conservative about the projections we have made about the impact of the global recession on Australia. We are not out of the woods yet.

This government has a strategy to see Australia through this recession and to lift Australia out of this global recession over time. We have a strategy being implemented on the ground. I say to those opposite: there are only two people not happy with today’s positive economic data—that is, Malcolm Turnbull and Joe Hockey.

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