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

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to his statement last week that he has a new seven-point plan to fix global debt. How does this fit in with the Prime Minister’s five-point plan to stabilise global markets, his four-point plan on bank switching, his five-point plan to fight inflation and his five-point plan for tighter regulation of lending? Prime Minister, when can we expect a plan to create jobs in Australia?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for North Sydney for his question. He asked me also about Dun & Bradstreet before. He forgot to mention that they said that this is a demonstration that not only has the federal government’s stimulus package been necessary but more will be required before the end of 2009. I notice the member for North Sydney did not actually add that bit in his reference to the Dun & Bradstreet release.

The member for North Sydney refers to the global economy. I would have thought that, as someone who himself has worked in financial markets before, he would understand the impact of global financial markets on the Australian economy. I would also have thought that the honourable member would understand that, if you have a problem in the supply of global credit to the Australian economy, it has a direct impact on the flow of credit to households and to businesses and to small businesses.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Prime Minister was asked a specific question about a jobs plan for Australians. We know that he is embarrassed about all his other plans. He needs to come back to his jobs—

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

The member for Sturt will resume his seat. In the preamble to the question, at least five other plans were mentioned. The Prime Minister is responding to the question.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would have thought that the member for North Sydney, given his background in the financial services industry, would understand the flow-through impact of global credit supply on Australian financial institutions and Australian firms, large and small, and the impact, in turn, on employment. That is why the government, including the Treasurer, me and others, are directly engaged with other heads of government in the G20 in order to advance proposals to deal with the challenge which all global banks are now confronted with, including the particular problem which those large banks in the United States and the United Kingdom currently confront in terms of the state of their balance sheets.

The member for North Sydney knows full well that until that problem is effectively dealt with, we have a huge problem on our hands in terms of the global economy. The member for North Sydney may find this terribly amusing, but I think all seriously minded members of this House would understand that in the midst of a global economic recession, which has come off the back of a global financial crisis that came off the back of the state of the world’s global banks, we must also go back to the cause of the problem. That is what the government is dealing with.

What we are also dealing with in the meantime is sorting out what measures can be deployed responsibly within Australia to cushion the impact of the global economic recession on Australia. That is why we have advanced our policy to stabilise domestic financial markets by providing guarantees for every Australian deposit holder. That is why we have also advanced our proposals to provide short-term stimulus through payments to pensioners, to veterans, to carers and to first home buyers. That is why the government is in the business of supporting longer term stimulus by embracing Australia’s single biggest school modernisation program, embracing the biggest single injection into social housing that this country has seen—that is, 20,000 units—and investing in energy efficiency measures with the objective of ensuring that owner-occupied dwellings in Australia—all of them—have ceiling insulation by the time that that program has concluded.

What do these measures do? They stimulate jobs at the local level, they provide benefits by way of infrastructure for the long term and, in the case of the energy efficiency measure, they also reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We have a strategy and a plan to steer Australia through the crisis. The alternative is the opposition’s approach, which is not to advance a serious economic alternative but to seek to turn everything to their political advantage. That is the simple contrast here. I say to those opposite that their approach of sitting back and waiting—of doing nothing—and then simply carping and criticising whatever the government does on the positive agenda is, frankly, ultimately unsustainable if they want to advance any credentials whatsoever or to be taken seriously in the Australian body politic at present.

We are faced with a serious crisis. The government in its arsenal does not have a silver bullet. We have said repeatedly that our objective is to cushion the impact of this crisis on Australian families and jobs. That is a responsible course of action; it is a strategy that we believe can see Australia through this crisis, and it stands in stark contrast with the absence of any strategy whatsoever on the part of those opposite.