Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. I wonder if he could explain to the House how the coalition government's economic plan is bringing Australia's economy back to life.

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

I thank the member for Grey for his question and acknowledge his experience as a farmer before coming into this place. Some 65,000 taxpayers in the electorate of Grey are getting tax relief as a result of the legislation that he and others on this side of the House have supported. Some 25,000 pensioners, carers, veterans and others on income support have received payments as a result of the initiatives of this government.

Now, Australia has been hit by a once-in-a-century pandemic and the most significant economic shock since the Great Depression. To put it into perspective: during the GFC the global economic contracted by 0.1 per cent. This year the IMF is expecting the global economy to contract by 4.4 per cent. The Morrison government has responded with an unprecedented level of economic support: $257 billion. Now, $130 billion has already gone out the door to the pockets of Australian households and businesses: $70 billion through JobKeeper, around $34 billion in the cash flow boast, about $16 billion through the coronavirus supplement and more than $9 billion through $750 payments to millions of pensioners and carers. We've also given Australians access to their own money with early access to super: some $36 billion where people have got access to their own money, which is helping to support the economic recovery.

The economic response from the federal government has helped the economic recovery get underway. It is a recovery which has seen 178,000 jobs created last month, which has seen the effective unemployment rate come down from a high of 14.9 per cent to 7.4 per cent—a significant fall. Consumer confidence is coming back, and we also know that business confidence is coming back. In the budget, we announce a series of other measures to support the economy, including tax cuts for more than 11½ million Australians; a JobMaker hiring credit, which will get young people who are unemployed into work; business investment incentives to encourage more investment and greater productivity across the nation; supporting apprentices as well, with a 50 per cent wage subsidy to those employers who take them on; and other important programs such as JobTrainer to support the training of people across the economy. So our initiatives are helping the Australian economy come back from a once-in-a-century economic shock. (Time expired)