Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Given that we know widespread lockdowns present a significant negative effect on our economy, will the Prime Minister outline to the House how sticking to the national plan ensures a way forward for our country to live safely with the virus, restore Australia's economic future, get businesses going again and get Australians into jobs?

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

I thank the member for Fisher for his question. I especially thank him for his untiring advocacy on the issue of mental health in this parliament and particularly for our young people. He has been an extraordinary advocate and has informed the government's policies significantly, including the more than $2 billion that we announced in last year's budget. I commend the member for Fisher for his extraordinary work and passion.

He also knows that the national plan will enable Australians to live safely with the virus in the future. That's what it achieves and that's why it's important: to move away from the heavy burden of these terrible lockdowns that are being lived with in two states and one territory even now as we speak, and also not to have to live with the threat of such heavy lockdowns hanging over the rest of the country. The national plan is essential, critical, to Australia's economic recovery. Today, the national accounts which have been released affirm that, despite the tremendous challenges of COVID over the course of 2020-2021, our economic response as a government, investing in the resilience of the Australian economy, its businesses and households, has proven to be highly effective. That has ensured that Australians have been able to continue to make their way through.

Now, it's certainly difficult; there's no doubt about that. But what the national accounts reveal is an economy that is resilient and an economy that has been supported by the targeted and well-thought-through economic interventions that are seeing Australia through: supporting incomes, keeping our economy ticking over, enabling Australians to build their first home and supporting new investment by businesses all around the country to drive our economy through at a very difficult time. All measures are working closely together to achieve what has been over the course of 2020-2021 an extraordinary economic comeback. It's an economic comeback which some doubted would occur, but one which now puts Australia, in the course of the last financial year, as one of the most successful developed economies in the world in countering the impact of COVID-19.

But the challenges are still there and we're now going to face the same challenge again as the delta strain has wreaked its havoc on countries all around the world, including here in Australia. We will mount that comeback again! The same economic policies, determination and commitment which have seen Australia once through this pandemic, economically—putting a million people back into work—we will do them again. Australians can have confidence that we will produce through our policies the confidence that they can go ahead to support an economy that guarantees the essentials that Australians rely on. (Time expired)