Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Smith for his question. As all Australians appreciate and as people right around the world know, in the last 12 months the world faced the largest economic shock since the Great Depression, but, pleasingly, Australia's economic recovery is working. We're seeing Australians getting back into jobs and seeing confidence building across the Australian economy. Just last week, we learnt the unemployment rate had fallen yet again across Australia from 6.6 per cent to 6.4 per cent in January. Indeed more than 59,000 full-time jobs were created across the Australian economy in January. Around 93 per cent of those jobs lost at the height of the pandemic have come back and that means hundreds of thousands of jobs have been created over the past few months. Pleasingly, the majority of those jobs have seen Australian women re-entering the workforce. We have seen the underemployment rate hit its lowest level in years.

Not only are we seeing new jobs being created but the economy is showing great resilience. Today the wage price index increased by 0.6 per cent in the December quarter, beating market expectations. The outcome was driven by stronger growth in private sector wages, which increased by 0.7 per cent, the strongest quarterly outcome in private sector wages since 2014.

We have seen business and consumer confidence get back to their pre-pandemic levels, resilience in the housing market and in motor vehicle sales. We've also seen resilience across the Australian economy in relation to government support programs, with more than two million people graduating off of JobSeeker in the December quarter and another half a million people graduating off of JobKeeper just last month.

Fitch, the credit rating agency, has reaffirmed Australia's AAA credit rating, one of only nine countries in the world to have a AAA credit rating from the leading three credit ratings agencies. That's a testament to Australia's economic strength. There is a job to continue to do. But we are absolutely seeing significant progress.