Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Curtin for her question. Earlier today, together with the Deputy Prime Minister and the foreign minister, I had the great privilege to meet with Tim Weeks, who has come home to Australia after one of the most incredible ordeals that you could imagine an Australian to go through. I had the opportunity to thank the President of the United States recently for the incredible role the United States played. I raise this because Mr Weeks's story is one of the incredible resilience of an Australian. This is the nature of Australians. We are an incredibly resilient people, and our government is building our nation's resilience by backing those Australians in about their optimism in the future—not the pessimism of the Labor Party. The irrepressible optimism of Australians is what our government is investing in. We're investing in their financial resilience; we're investing in the economic resilience of this country and the national security resilience of this country.

Today's national accounts show that, through the year, growth has risen from 1.4 per cent to 1.7 per cent. What it shows is that Australians over the past year have earned more. Household disposable income is up 2½ per cent—that's the highest increase in 10 years—and average compensation was up 2.9 per cent over the year, rising to above the 10-year average. We are now in a place where we can say that we have ensured—since the last election, and through these results it's demonstrated, we have said Australians would earn more and they could also keep more of what they earned. And, through the tax relief that we have provided those Australians, they have chosen to invest that in their own resilience. I can tell you—

Opposition Member:

An opposition member interjecting—

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just heard an interjection from that member opposite. He says they haven't earned more. Well, household disposable income went up by 2.5 per cent—it's the highest in a decade—and the average compensation for Australians went up by 2.9 per cent, which went up over the 10-year average. Now, I know those opposite are illiterate with the economy and national finances. That's what the Australian people also know. I trust Australians with their money and Australians trust this government with their money, too, and that's why they returned us. They returned us because they know this government knows how to manage money and they know the Labor Party doesn't. Our investment in expanding our export markets and our investment in the essential services that Australians rely on are backed up in the public final demand figures that are in those national accounts. We have been taking the right decisions for the Australian economy. We're backing in the irrepressible optimism of Australians, because we know that's where our future lies.