One Year as Treasurer: Frydenberg Gets an "F" for Floundering Economy

24 August 2019

Today marks one year since Josh Frydenberg became this Government’s third Treasurer, and his report card makes for grim reading.

Today marks one year since Josh Frydenberg became this Government’s third Treasurer, and his report card makes for grim reading.
 
The economy has floundered for years under the Liberals but Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg have only made things worse.
 
Josh Frydenberg’s record is defined by slower growth, stagnant wages, weaker productivity, higher unemployment and underemployment, surging net debt and higher household debt.
 
This is one anniversary Australians won’t be celebrating. 
 
In the last year alone, this Treasurer has overseen:
 
• Slowest economic growth since the Global Finance Crisis with GDP growth falling every quarter.
• Longest per capita recession since the 1980s recession.
• Stagnant wages growing slower than the Government’s own budget forecasts.
• Weakening productivity, declining in every quarter, with GDP per hour worked declining by almost 1 per cent.
• An extra 55,000 people looking for work or looking for more work.
• Surging net debt, rising by $23 billion to over 19 per cent of GDP.
• Record household debt which has increased by $42 billion to 190 per cent of household debt.
 
On today’s anniversary, it’s clear that Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg are in dangerous denial about the nature of these home-grown economic weaknesses.
 
Their denial means that Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg have no plan to turn this floundering economy around and that leaves Australia dangerously exposed to global volatility.