Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased that we are discussing this matter of public importance today because it is critical for a whole range of reasons. We at this point in time are gearing up and the next time we come back here we will be discussing the federal budget. That federal budget will be delivered at a time when there is global uncertainty about the state of the economy. A few years ago, as a nation we were confronted by one of the worst economic circumstances in 75 years in the shape of the global financial crisis, where economies around the world were freezing up as a result of financial systems and where people simply did not trust each other with money. They did not trust each other in terms of lending money. As the banking system started to feel the reverberations of that, we saw in our case—particularly, for example, in the construction industry—projects faltering and not going ahead, and a serious concern about what would happen with jobs.

But, despite all that, as a result of the quick, thorough moves taken by this government that ensured that jobs would not be lost, we have now come out of it with solid growth. The economy is on track to grow at trend this year. We have an unemployment rate that is the envy of the world. It is 5.2 per cent here compared to about 10.7 per cent in Europe. In some parts of the world there is up to 20 per cent unemployment and large numbers of youth particularly, who are seeing the best years of their lives waste away because they are simply unable to find work. Here we have been able to bottle inflation, with underlying inflation sitting squarely in the Reserve Bank's target band and a cash rate sitting at 4.25 per cent, which is incredible when you consider in the 11 years that those opposite were in government how long they were able to even get that cash rate. It was about six months. Six months of 11 years is about as good as it got for those opposite. We have 4.25 per cent.

The Treasurer mentioned today—and it has been mentioned on a number of occasions—that when you look at how much investment is in the pipeline you will see that there is $455 billion in resources alone. The other great thing is that we have very low net debt. It is less than a 10th of the levels across major advanced economies. We will return the budget to surplus while keeping the tax to GDP ratio lower than the level that it reached at its peak when those opposite were on this side of the House. It is probably worth noting again that, when those opposite were sitting here, tax as a percentage of GDP was about 24 per cent; now, under us, it is down to 21 per cent.

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