Senator the Hon Mathias Cormann

Today the Treasurer and I released our update on the economy and the Budget.

While we had to present a very challenging set of numbers, we all know why we are here in this position.

Overwhelmingly, we are in this position because of the massive impact on our economy and consequently on our Budget of the coronavirus pandemic.

Because of the high cost of our necessary crisis level support for our health system, our economy and to protect and support jobs.

Because of the significant impact of the economic hit on our revenues, our expenditures and our Budget bottom line.

So yes, we find ourselves in a very challenging fiscal position.

But we need to keep things in perspective.

We are in a better, stronger, more resilient position than most other countries around the world.

Australia has outperformed nearly every other country when it comes to our health, economic and fiscal outcomes.

We are in a better, stronger, more resilient position as a result of the Budget repair work that was done under our Government over the first six and a half years that we were in government. 

The decisions we made prior to this crisis have improved our budget position by more than $250 billion over the 10 years to 2022-23.

This put us on a better, more sustainable fiscal trajectory for the future before we went into this crisis.

If we had not done that, we would have had less fiscal capacity to respond and our economy would have been less resilient.

We have been working through the impact of this crisis on our economy, businesses and jobs, in an orderly fashion.

First, there was the immediate crisis response - protecting lives and livelihoods, including the critically important JobKeeper and enhanced JobSeeker measures.

Second, we have worked on a sensible transition, to as close as possible back to normal, in a context where the virus remains with us. This involved continuous support for the economy and jobs where required and laying the foundations for a strong recovery.

Thirdly, we will keep building on our many measures to keep and create more new jobs as part of our five-year plan to maximise the strength of our economic and jobs recovery. With our focus on tax incentives for businesses to invest, deregulation, skills development, workplace relations reforms, infrastructure investment, our free trade agenda and much more.

We are doing all of this against the backdrop of an economic and fiscal outlook which remains highly uncertain.

That is why we are presenting 2-year numbers in this Update.

By the time of the Budget in October, which we delayed for a reason, we will be in a position to provide all the relevant forecasts and projections over the entire forward estimates period and over the medium term. 

In the Budget, we will also reflect the next instalment of our comprehensive five year plan to maximise the strength of our economic and jobs recovery on the other side. 

But let me repeat the most important point this today.

Yes, Australia finds itself in a very challenging fiscal position as a result of the impact of the coronavirus crisis and pandemic here in Australia.

But we are in a better, stronger, more resilient position than just about any other country around the world and that gives us a very strong foundation from which to build the recovery on the other side.