Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer please explain to the House how yesterday's national accounts figures demonstrate how the Morrison government's strong and decisive economic management is helping the Australian economy make its comeback?

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Moore for his question and acknowledge his experience in small business and as a local councillor before coming to this place. Around 70,000 students in the electorate of Moore will get a tax cut as a result of the legislation that we supported on this side of the House.

Yesterday we had the national accounts numbers. They were an encouraging set of numbers that show that the comeback in the Australian economy is on. It is on! The comeback is on! We saw an increase in GDP in the September quarter of 3.3 per cent—the single largest increase in quarterly GDP since 1976. We saw strong growth in every state and territory, except for Victoria. If Victoria had achieved the growth that we'd seen on average across the other states and territories, we would have seen growth in the September quarter of five per cent. What we have seen in the national accounts is a consumption-led recovery—a 7.9 per cent increase in household consumption. It's up in recreation, up in transport and up in hotels, cafes and restaurants. This is after a fall of 12.5 per cent in the June quarter. So household consumption is coming back as the restrictions are eased and the health crisis is brought under control.

Australia is performing better on the health and economic front than nearly any other country. If you look at year-on-year comparisons in the economy at the end of the September quarter, Australia has done better than the United Kingdom, than France, than Germany, than Japan, than Canada and than New Zealand. This is something that all Australians can be proud of. This is the latest economic data on the back of other important data which has shown the recovery is underway: 178,000 jobs were created last month, consumer confidence is up in 12 out of the last 13 weeks, building approvals are up by 3.8 per cent and capital city prices are up by 0.7 per cent. And today we have ABS data that shows construction loans are up by 65.6 per cent since July in line with the HomeBuilder program, which is helping to save and create jobs right around the country. We've also seen Australia's AAA credit rating reaffirmed, an upgrade on our economic forecasts from the OECD and fewer people on JobKeeper as the economic recovery gets underway.