Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Brisbane for his question. Today is a really significant day in the economy of Australia, because today the labour force statistics indicate that we've had 16 consecutive months of growth in net terms in jobs in Australia—the longest consecutive period of jobs growth since those statistics have been kept. It is a real red-letter day for the economy. That is the sort of issue that the Australian public is interested in.

The first responsibility of any government is to take care of the economy. The member for Brisbane must be particularly pleased, because Queensland has accounted for a quarter of the 403,000 new jobs that have been created in the last 12 months—really important for the Queensland economy. So, once again, the statistics are proving that the Abbott and Turnbull governments' policies over the last four years are having exactly the impact that we wanted to drive in Australia: more jobs, more investment, more growth in the economy, records being broken like today's and records like last year's, with 403,000 new jobs—the highest number in history. The levers of policy that we've been pulling on this side of the House are having exactly the impact that you would expect from a coalition government. We are the true inheritors of the Howard-Costello legacy of good economic management.

Mr Pasin interjecting—

Mr Champion interjecting—

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