Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer outline for the House Australia's strong jobs record? Why is it important that we invest in education and training to keep this record strong?

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

I thank the member for his question. The Australian economy is the strongest developed economy in the world. We have impressive growth, we have low unemployment and we are outperforming every other major advanced economy. Unemployment, at 5.2 per cent, is less than half of that in countries across Europe. Inflation is at a 13-year low and official interest rates are lower than at any time under the previous government. That is a remarkable combination of economic fundamentals for any developed economy to have.

Something like 800,000 jobs have been created in this country in the period of the Labor government, because jobs have been our number one priority. We understand that access to skills, access to training and access to education not only gets Australians into jobs but also gets them into better paid jobs. It produces more jobs, but it produces higher quality jobs. That is why we on this side of the House are absolutely committed to lifting the standard of education and making sure that no kid anywhere in our country is left behind. We believe in a better education for every Australian.

Those on the other side of the House believe that too much money is being spent on public schools. The Leader of the Opposition said this was an injustice. That speaks volumes about the values of the Leader of the Opposition, but I think it does sound a warning bell about opposition plans to cut investment in public education in Australia. They are absolutely desperate to cut basic public services, particularly in health and education.

We know that the shadow Treasurer let the cat out of the bag when he admitted on Sunrise on 12 August last year that there was a $70 billion crater in the Liberal party's budget bottom line. He sat there beside the environment minister and made that statement, but now he goes out there and says he never said it—then who was impersonating the shadow Treasurer on 12 August last year?

The fact is, there is a secret agenda here: to slash education and to slash public health. It is a secret agenda that is straight from the playbook of Premier Campbell Newman in Queensland. His approach was to not say anything about these cuts until after the election. There has been a bit of a change in the strategy today because we now have the shadow Finance Minister out there with his new plan in the Financial Review, 'Coalition's radical new federalism', detailing coalition plans to offload jobs to the states. Do you know what the plan is? He wants to outsource government to government. That is his plan. But when you drill down a bit, what you actually see is that they want to outsource their slashing and burning to the Liberal state premiers. That is what this plan is all about. We on this side of the House will continue to invest in skills. They will slash it. (Time expired)