Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the senator for the question, though it seemed a little on the confused side. If his question is, 'What are we doing to stimulate the domestic economy?' I would suggest to him that he have a look at the facts. The reality is that we have, if not the most, one of the top-performing economies in the world. Our domestic economy, despite the structural change that is occurring, is very strong. We have very low unemployment compared to any other of the comparable OECD countries or modern industrialised countries. We have strong growth. We have a pipeline of mining and other investment in this country that is at record levels. So there is a lot about the domestic economy in this country that is very, very strong. You have seen that with reduced interest rates, low unemployment and economic growth. All of those factors and all the international reports point to a very strong domestic economy.

It is the case that there is restructuring occurring in that economy. That is driven by the high price of the Australian dollar, and the changes that are occurring in manufacturing are being driven largely by that. But there are technological and other changes occurring in the economy that is seeing that structural adjustment, and, unfortunately, we have seen a large number of job losses in various industries.

But it is also true that new jobs are being created. We have record numbers of new jobs being created. People are being moved, if you like, through the way the market works into industries that are expanding, including in areas like mining and related services in our own state of Western Australia, Senator Back. On any analysis, our domestic economy is performing very well, certainly when compared to like countries, and I do not understand the suggestion that seems to be implicit in the question.