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

My question is to the Treasurer. I refer the Treasurer to an announcement by Lend Lease just before question time that they are going to cut 1,700 jobs, including 340 jobs in Australia. I ask the Treasurer: given that the government has dressed up all of its announcements since the budget as ‘nation building and jobs’, why has Australia’s largest property developer just cut jobs across the nation?

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am certainly disappointed to hear that that is the case. It is yet another demonstration of why the government has acted so decisively and so swiftly with our Economic Security Strategy and our Nation Building and Jobs Plan. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that those industries and those sectors are under a lot of pressure. That is why the government has moved swiftly to stimulate demand and, most particularly, to put direct investment into building and construction—something which has been opposed tooth and nail in this House by those opposite. You cannot come in here—after opposing every single measure put forward by the government to stimulate demand and push construction—and claim that somehow the government is responsible for it.

We accept responsibility for the fact that we have to stimulate our economy. We have to give a significant boost to jobs, given the dramatic slowdown that is occurring in the global economy. We pointed to the fact that unemployment was going up when we put out our Updated Economic and Fiscal Outlook in February and brought down our Nation Building and Jobs Plan. You can see the benefits of that coming through, but those opposite, because they want to score a political point, will not acknowledge what is happening out there. They will not acknowledge the fact that retail sales in December were up—at the highest level since 2001. They will not acknowledge that. They will not acknowledge the substantial boost that is happening in the housing sector because of our first home owner boost. They certainly will not acknowledge that.

Our message is that the government will do everything we possibly can to stimulate demand and to ensure that credit flows through the system. That is why we put in place the bank guarantee, which was opposed tooth and nail by those opposite but which the Governor of the Reserve Bank has acknowledged was absolutely important in avoiding some very traumatic events in our financial system last October. They will not support our initiative of supplying credit to the property sector. They have opposed that tooth and nail. I do not even know whether they supported our special purpose vehicle for car dealerships. This government has been very active. We have been responsible in what we have done, because we acknowledge the size of the problem—something that those opposite simply refuse to do. If they want to have any credibility when it comes to the vital area of property, they should be supporting our $4 billion Australian Business Investment Partnership, which is being put in place to secure finance in the commercial property sector—something that they are opposing tooth and nail because they will not recognise the risk to our economy if foreign banks pull out of banking syndicates.

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

Mr Hockey interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for North Sydney has asked his question.

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So all of this simply demonstrates how unqualified, how unprepared, those opposite are to deal with this situation. But the government will continue to act forcefully and decisively in the face of all of these events that are being imposed upon us by the international economy.