Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

released today shows consumer confidence above its long-term average. In fact, it increased 0.9 per cent in the last week alone. The improvement was driven almost entirely by an 11.1 per cent increase in household perceptions about their financial situation compared to one year ago. So there you have it: the Leader of the Opposition's line yesterday about business confidence and consumer confidence is just dead wrong. But lending has returned to levels last seen prior to the global financial crisis. Total new lending commitments rose 7.6 per cent in June to a 6½-year high of $73 billion.

It all comes down to jobs. Jobs are what are driving our aspirations in the budget. We want to see more Australians in work and in better paid work. That is the focus of our budget. That is the focus of what we are doing in the economy. I can report to the honourable member for Corangamite that job growth in Australia each and every month this year has been three times what it was each and every month last year under Labor. Fifteen thousand new jobs are being created every month in Australia this year and it was around 5,000 jobs per month under Labor last year. But I want to emphasise that there is still much work to be done.

The unemployment rate of 6.4 per cent is too high and that is why we are rolling out of the biggest infrastructure program in Australian history in our budget. There will be cranes over our cities. There will be cranes across the country. We are rolling it out because we want to build the infrastructure of the 21st century and we want to create a great environment where business can go out and employ more Australians.

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