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

Furthermore, capital investment expectations are at their highest level in two years, 16 per cent of firms expect to increase their cap ex and inventories are expected to rise for 20 per cent of firms. I quote from Dun and Bradstreet CEO Christine Christian:

The improvement in key indices such as employment and sales expectations is a sign that the economic stimulus has been successful in encouraging household spending.

I notice the member for North Sydney stopped interjecting, ‘This proves our point.’ She said, ‘The economic stimulus has been successful in encouraging household spending.’ I just draw the honourable member for North Sydney’s attention to a full reading of Dun and Bradstreet, and perhaps the Leader of the Opposition might do the same.

But there is more: the NAB Monthly Business Survey and Economic Outlook is out today. It says that business confidence has surged a further eight points to 18. NAB goes on to say:

… the result is the strongest since October 2003 and indicates that businesses are very optimistic about the monetary and fiscal measures undertaken by authorities to deal with the current global crisis as well as the resultant economic impacts.

Let me just go back to it again: the monetary and fiscal measures undertaken by authorities. I think one of those authorities is the Australian government because we are responsible for fiscal policy. I would have thought that on a reading of that, member for North Sydney, that what it points to by way of positive data in terms of business confidence and business conditions has not simply materialised out of thin air; it has been the construct in part of government policy acting through stimulus in the economy. We have therefore these outcomes from the business confidence survey of the NAB and of course the business confidence survey and business conditions survey by Dun and Bradstreet. These are important figures and I simply draw the honourable member’s attention to the fact that business confidence is now up 50 points from its trough in January—and remember: January was when we were absolutely in the pits of what was unfolding globally.

I also draw the honourable member’s attention to this statement from the NAB monthly business survey:

Retailing is now no more the best performing among the cyclical sectors, although it still remains positive overall. That mantle has now been handed over to construction.

Presumably that construction materialises out of thin air—it just happens! I can say to the honourable members opposite, with their rolling, negative campaign about the government stimulus strategy, that neither retail sales go up because of thin air factors nor does construction go up because of thin air factors. It is because, in the worst global economic crisis in three-quarters of a century, government policy action has been out there, shoulder to the wheel, supporting the economy while the private sector is in retreat. These two pieces of data come off the back of what we had with the ANZ job advertisements data of yesterday, which showed an increase of 4.1 per cent in August. This was the first monthly increase since April 2008.

These things reflect positive signs for the Australian economy but, as I said yesterday and will continue to say, we still have major global economic challenges lying ahead. We still have great uncertainties in the US economy and in the European economies and in those in North Asia as well. Therefore, for those opposite to argue, as they continue to do, that the government should pull the rug from under the recovery by abolishing stimulus now through the Nation Building for Recovery plan is simply not responding practically to the uncertain data which exists out there in the global economy.

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