Ross Lightfoot (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will not use much of my time to rebut that which the speakers on the other side have said about previous coalition governments but to say this: after the Howard government, Australians have never been better off. They have never been wealthier. There have never been more people in employment. We had never been debt free. We do not now have that yoke of 11 per cent unemployment around our neck that the previous Labor government created; or the $10 billion Beazley black hole that we inherited when we came into government in 1996; or the $97 billion debt that we had, which we abolished during the time that we were here; or the 10 per cent inflation rate that we had when we came into government; or the 22 per cent interest rates that we had under Labor.