Bruce Baird (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Treasurer. Would the Treasurer outline to the House the benefits that good economic management brings? How can that be shared in the community?

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

I thank the honourable member for Cook for his question. I can say to him that discipline and hard work over the last 10 years has put the Australian economy in a much stronger position today than it was in 1996. If you want some evidence of the benefits that good economic management can bring, it is in today’s labour force figures. Labour force figures for the month of April 2007 show that unemployment fell again—to 4.4 per cent, which is the lowest since November 1974. Nearly 50,000 jobs were created in April. Over the last year, 300,000 new jobs were created in Australia. Job creation is occurring at the rate of about 850 jobs a day. Let me say that again: in the last year in Australia, we have been putting on jobs at the rate of about 850 a day. As a consequence of that, there are more Australians in work than ever before and unemployment is at a 32-year low.

Benefits that good economic management can bring include more people in work, families with a breadwinner and people who can pay their mortgages and educate their children. We are not in the situation we used to be—where breadwinners were thrown on the scrap heap and unemployment was at the level we had in the ‘recession we should never have had’ in 1990. In this budget, coming off the back of strong employment growth, we are also able to share economic benefits with others—with pensioners, who will be getting a $500 bonus; with self-funded retirees, who will also be getting a bonus; and with low- and middle-income earners, who will be getting a deposit into their superannuation scheme if they have taken part in the co-contribution. These are the benefits that good, strong economic management can bring. The Commonwealth will be doing that because, for the 10th year in a row, the Commonwealth budget will be balanced.

Mr Speaker, you will no doubt hear the Labor Party claim that they believe in balanced budgets. They opposed every step we took in Australia to drive the budget back into balance, but now of course they are in favour of balanced budgets. I always say: ‘Don’t listen to what Labor says. Look at what Labor does. Look at what Labor did when it was in office at the Commonwealth level.’ One way of measuring the Labor Party is to look at the position of the state Labor governments. As a whole, what surplus would you think the state Labor governments will have in the next financial year? What would they have? The state Labor governments did have surplus in 2005-06 but they have now collectively driven state budgets into deficit. The state budget sector as a whole is in deficit. The states have to borrow to fund that deficit. The net borrowing for state-territory governments and their trading enterprises will increase by $56 billion over the forward estimates.

Here is the Commonwealth paying down debt and balancing its budget whilst the state Labor governments will be running up debt of $56 billion—but you will never hear anything about that from the Leader of the Opposition. You will never hear anything from him about what effect borrowing $56 billion would have on financial markets. You will hear a lot from him about how he is concerned about interest rates. But is he concerned enough about interest rates to ask his cobbers at the state level to get out of financial markets and to stop putting pressure on savings? He is not that concerned. Do not listen to what Labor says; look at what Labor does. Labor is running a deficit and debt combined over the six states and two territories in this country.