Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister outline how the government is building a strong economy and why the nation has a bright future, despite recent international events?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question. Australia has a bright future and the fundamentals of our economy are strong. In recent days, of course, Australians have watched a flood of concerning international news. Over the last few weeks, there has been plenty to watch on our TV screens and much of it has been very concerning. As people have watched it, they have been concerned about the political brinksmanship they have seen played out in Washington, they have been concerned by the institutional weakness they have seen in a number of economies and they have been concerned by the fiscal issues they have seen playing out on the world stage.

But, as Australians have watched this flood of news internationally, our standpoint has been a very different one from people around the world watching this news. Whilst this news is concerning, it also paints in sharp relief the achievements of this country. Australians are rightly proud of our economic achievements, and that is a pride I share. When people from overseas look at Australia, it is often with a sense of great envy—great envy about our beaches; great envy about our climate. Today, people are looking at our nation with a sense of great envy about our economy. There are many nations around the world who would very, very quickly change all of their macroeconomic indicators to be the same as this country's.

We are better placed than any nation on earth to ride out the current global turbulence, and that is not because of any accident. It is because of the actions that this government took to keep our economy out of recession during the global financial crisis. It is because of the decades of reforms that have led to the resilience of our economy. It is because during the global financial crisis employers went that extra yard to keep people in jobs and unions cooperated with employers in order to keep people in work. It is because of that resilience that has been tested time and time again, a resilience that has always stood up to the challenges, that we can face the future with confidence.

We can face the future with confidence because we have solid economic growth, low unemployment and low debt. Those things are not simply words—they are real things impacting on Australians today. Low unemployment means 11.5 million Australians take home a pay cheque every week. It means our unemployment rate is 5.1 per cent. In the UK it is 7.7 per cent and the US is at 9.1. We have strong public finances, so people around the nation can get on with the concerns in their own lives and not need to have concerns about the nation's finances. Public debt is less than seven per cent of GDP in this country compared with 80 per cent of GDP in the UK and 86 per cent of GDP in the US, and we have a huge pipeline of investment—$430 billion—in the resources sector of the economy alone. Australians are rightly proud of the economy that we have built together. It has strong fundamentals and strong foundation stones and, because of that, even during this period of global turbulence, we can face the future with confidence.