Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

It is no wonder the Labor Party was so bad at managing the economy and the budget. The Australian economy right now is going through a transition. It is true that after significant capital investment in order to meet the demand for our key resources there was a very high level of investment in the resources sector in particular. There was a very high level of investment in the iron ore industry and a very high level of investment in the LNG industry. Of course, that will all keep driving increased production volumes.

One of the reasons why we are in better shape as an economy now than we otherwise might have been, despite the significant falls in our terms of trade, is that production volumes are going up and the value of the Australian dollar has been coming down. That has cushioned somewhat the significant effect in terms of the fall in our terms of trade. But there have been record levels of investment on the back of the best terms of trade in 140 years which peaked in 2012 under Labor and we—(Time expired)