Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. How is the government working to invest in Australian jobs and keep the economy strong?

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

I thank the member for Banks for his question and I thank him for his interest in the Australian economy and the opportunities of people in his electorate to get work. The member for Banks knows, as all members of the government know, that it is impossible to understand our modern world and it is impossible to shape plans for the future unless you clearly understand the impact of the global financial crisis, its causes, its magnitude, its effects and its aftershocks. No-one can credibly present as a commentator or a policy maker in economic affairs unless they understand at a level of depth the impacts of the global financial crisis.

To give people just one statistic which helps understand the magnitude of the global financial crisis and its after-effects: the eurozone is still in recession and in the United States over 12 million people are unemployed. That is the size of the Australian labour market in total—that many people unemployed. That is the size of the effects, ongoing, of the global financial crisis and its implications for the real economy around the world. When you have lived through an economic event of that magnitude then you need to fully understand its aftereffects.

Here in this country, because we acted decisively, we supported Australian jobs and kept Australians working. I am proud that, during the worst of the global financial crisis, we stepped forward and supported 200,000 jobs and I am proud that, as a government, since our election we have overseen the creation of more than 800,000 jobs. But the global financial crisis has ongoing implications, including reducing government revenues by $160 billion. And, of course, this comes at a time where our economy is still being shaped and reshaped by the strong Australian dollar and its ongoing impacts. That means it would be precisely the wrong time to seek offsetting savings to future revenue downgrades. It would be precisely the wrong time to go through the government’s budget with swinging cutbacks to jobs, precisely the wrong time to do that.

This government will do what is necessary during this period of economic change defined by the global financial crisis and, ongoing, by the strength of the Australian dollar and the growth in our region. We will do everything in this period, as we have in the past, to support jobs and growth so that working Australians get an opportunity to build a decent life for themselves and their families.