Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I was saying, those on the opposite side of the chamber are becoming a protectionist party. However, they should look outside at the rest of the world to see what significant achievements this country has made and should stop this fear campaign about our economy.

Let's start with our growth. In the Euro zone, the economy after December 2007 shrank by 1.7 per cent. The Japanese economy shrank by 1.7 per cent and the US economy grew by just 1.2 per cent. What happened here in Australia? What happened here in Australia was 10.3 per cent growth. That is an astonishing achievement when you look around the rest of the world and at what we have done.

That did not happen by accident. That happened because this government acted when it was necessary. This government acted to protect jobs. I know that for those on the other side of the chamber it is a foreign concept to act to protect jobs; in fact, one could say that, for them, it is the opposite: they act to protect unemployment in some ways. But we acted to protect jobs. We made it very clear that we would act to protect jobs and, when growth returned to trend, we would do the economically responsible thing, make savings and return the budget to surplus.

That is exactly what we are doing. Over the last five budgets we have seen savings of $130-plus billion. That is because we know that it is responsible, when we are facing an issue where there is economic downturn, for the government to intervene, and when it is not facing economic downturn the government has to withdraw. That is exactly what we have done. We have made savings in a whole range of areas.

And, might I say, they are savings that the opposition continually vote against. There was the Chronic Dental Health Scheme, about which there has been some conjecture. That was a scheme that was rorted by many people. It was a scheme that was not means-tested. It did not matter whether you were a pensioner or a millionaire, you could get access to the scheme. It was a poorly targeted scheme but when we moved to close that down the Liberal Party voted against it.

Then there was the private health insurance rebate. That was a rebate that we believed should be properly and appropriately targeted, but those on the other side of the House voted against it. So, while we have been doing our bit to make savings, we have seen the opposition irresponsibly vote against that. That is why I can only see this MPI as representing crocodile tears. When the government have been working to produce savings, unfortunately the opposition have just voted against those measures.

It is not surprising that there is a $70 billion black hole in the opposition's figures. They say there are answers about where the money will come from but they will not actually tell us where. Which hospitals, which jobs, what education spending will they cut? But we do know where the money will go if they keep to their promises—and that is to their direct action plan.

We have not heard much about their direct action plan, but it is an incredibly expensive plan. We have been talking about wasting money. A direct action plan that costs billions and billions of dollars, with no change to climate change, one could call a direct waste of money. But the opposition, if they continue to uphold that they believe climate change is occurring and that they need to act, will implement, if they are ever elected, this direct action plan. That would mean a tax bill, if they do not find the savings, of $1,300 for every single household.

They will not tell us where the money is coming from. Often the Labor Party get in these debates, 'You're just making this up; there's no $70 billion black hole.' Of course, the $70 billion figure does not come from the Labor Party; it comes directly from the mouths of those opposite. It is time for the Liberal Party, who profess to be good economic managers, to be very clear about how they are going to fund this. Of course, this is on the back of an $11 billion black hole at the last election. It shows that when it comes to being transparent, those on the other side are a little sloppy.

Our economy is going very well. Since coming to office we have created 800,000 jobs.

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