George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much indeed, Mr President. Thank you, Senator Cameron, for giving me the opportunity to tell you the good news about the Australian economy: as I said, a 3.3 per cent economic growth figure. The government of which you were a member, Senator Cameron, when it left office, had an economic growth figure of 1.9 per cent per annum. So we have almost doubled the rate of economic growth compared to what you achieved.

Growth in the non-mining sector is now 2.9 per cent per annum. The government of which you were a member left the rate of growth in the non-mining sector at 1.8 per cent per year. Exports are 9.6 per cent higher than 12 months ago. As I said in response to your colleague Senator Ketter, this is the highest rate of growth in exports in 16 years.

Jobs growth has been 220,000 in the last year—220,000 extra jobs in the last year. By comparison, Senator Cameron, the government of which you were a member, in its last year in office, recorded jobs growth of a paltry 86,000. That is almost 2½ times the rate of growth in jobs. Under the government of which you were a member, female labour force participation was stagnant at 58.6 per cent. It reached a record high of 59.7 per cent under the government led by Malcolm Turnbull. (Time expired)