Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Treasurer. Would the Treasurer outline recent data on Australian private sector wealth? How has the government contributed to this improvement and what more needs to be done?

Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Tangney for his question. I can inform him that the Treasury, in its round-up, has today released estimates of net private sector wealth featuring data to June 2005. The data shows that net private sector wealth grew 11.8 per cent in nominal terms over the last year. Net private sector wealth in Australia now stands at $6.2 trillion—around $305,000 for every Australian—and over the last 10 years net private sector wealth in Australia has more than doubled. That means that, on average, Australians over the last 10 years have twice the level of wealth that they had before the government was elected.

This is reflected not only in property values but particularly in business assets. Business assets have grown extremely strongly in recent years, with company profits as a proportion of GDP being the highest ever recorded in Australia. In particular, Australia has become one of the great share-owning democracies of the world. There are more Australians who own shares, as a proportion of the public, here in Australia than anywhere else in the world.

The government’s policies of locking in low inflation, locking in low interest rates, of improving the macro-economic climate and of improving structural policy have contributed to an extended period of economic growth, low unemployment and business profitability, and all Australians are seeing that reflected in private sector wealth. We cannot sit back and say that we will now rest on our laurels. It is important that we drive economic policy forward, just as we have done over the last 10 years, against the opposition of the Australian Labor Party, which objected to balancing the budget, objected to monetary policy, objected to the repayment of debt, objected to the introduction of GST, objected to the halving of capital gains tax, objected to the reduction in the company tax rate and objected to last year’s income tax cuts. Over the last 10 years all of the big economic changes in this country have been driven through against the objections of the Australian Labor Party and its do-nothing leadership. We have seen the results today—the reforms of yesterday—and it is the reforms of today which will lead to the results of tomorrow and these are the policies Australia needs to drive it forward.