Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer update the House on the G20 finance ministers' meeting being held next week?

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

I thank the honourable member for the question and recognise that he recognises that the G20 finance ministers' and central bank governors' meeting in Sydney next week is very important. I want to recognise that the member for Lilley and the member for McMahon both attended previous G20 finance ministers' meetings—in the case of the member for Lilley, quite a number of them. The G20 was at first at its best as a finance ministers' meeting, out of the ashes of the Asian financial crisis. Then it became a leaders' meeting, after the real impact of the global financial crisis. Now it is a finance ministers' meeting held five times a year, and Australia is the chair of the G20. The G20 is the 20 largest economies in the world, representing 85 per cent of the world economy and 75 per cent of the world's trade. In Sydney next week the world's economy is going to be focused on that meeting. It will be at times a difficult meeting. There are going to be discussions about the impact of the US's tapering and what that means for currencies around the world. For a lot of Australians it seems quite remote, but the fact is that the currency has a big impact on many Australian businesses, as we have seen this week. Therefore it is a discussion not only that we will participate in but, as chair, we will lead. I refer you to the Prime Minister's outstanding speech in Davos earlier this year. It was lauded by chief executives and finance ministers and other leaders around the world for its direction.

The Australian Prime Minister wants the world to focus on getting rid of unnecessary regulation, on reducing taxes, on growth through freer trade, on a fairer taxation system, on empowering business to get on with the job rather than expecting governments, which are cash poor, to do the heaving lifting. That direction, which the Prime Minister stated in Davos for the G20, is going to reverberate around the world and around the global economy over the next 12 months and beyond. We are going to facilitate that with the G20 finance ministers next week. It is a long way to come to Australia for a meeting. The fact that every key finance minister and central banker in the world is coming to Sydney next week to discuss the world economy says a lot about what we can lead and the way we can take the world.