Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

No, no, I do not have a degree in economics. I have three others, thanks very much. I have enough on my plate. The Leader of the Opposition does not like economics and gets so bored by economics that he stays asleep while we are going through the legislation to do something about it. Then he gets his PR merchants opposite to carp away there. I can see them standing up in a minute and doing their contribution. I do not think so.

Let us have a look at our record. First and foremost, we have had strong economic management by acting decisively to keep us out of the recession. They can laugh all they like on the other side. If we had followed their views, we would have been deep in recession. Without the government's decisive action to keep our economy strong, around 200,000 jobs would have been lost.

Some opposite are supposed to be responsible for the financial policies of the opposition with an $11 billion or $12 billion black hole in your figures. When you went to present the figures in front of the media, we had the advisers on the other side saying to those opposite, 'Slit, slit, cut.' We do not know what we are talking about here. You could not even account for your own budget figures. Can you believe that those opposite would have the gall to attack us on economic credibility? That is unbelievable stuff. One of them is in the House now and still confused.

We will return to surplus. When we presented the budget this year, did the Leader of the Opposition present a budget? No. Was there a budget reply? No. Was there an alternative to the budget? No. Because they do not know how to construct a constructive budget. The member opposite, the member for Goldstein, is one of those with a record of economic incompetence himself, but he does not want to know about it. Just go and read the papers about your debacle during the election and your figures—an $11 billion black hole, cobber. Go and have a look. Do you know what it means? Of course you do not. You have no idea.

Not only that but we have supported jobs, with unemployment in Australia among the lowest in the world, with almost 750,000 more Australians in work since we came into office in November 2007, and real wage increases have occurred for that work. That is a good record in very difficult times. We have helped those that needed the help the most. We helped pensioners. We drove an increase of around $115 a fortnight for single pensioners and around $97 a fortnight for pensioner couples combined.

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