Mr NIKOLIC (Bass) (16:34): I appreciate this opportunity to talk about economic plans. I am particularly pleased that the member for Rankin is in the House, because he was at the heart of the Labor Party's economic plan from 2008 to 2013. I will be saying something about that later on in my speech. Deputy Speaker, I would like to provide you with a case study on economic plans. I am going to use my home state of Tasmania because, by any measure, Tasmania is in a much stronger position today than it was at the time of the 2013 election. When I went the 2013 election the unemployment rate in Tasmania was 8.6 per cent. I am pleased to say that today it is some 25 per cent lower, at 6.6 per cent, with some 10,000 jobs created. Our state colleagues report that Tasmania's finances are under control. They will be back to surplus in 2017 and every year of the forward estimates. Compare that to the situation that existed when the governor-general opened the 44th Parliament. I listened to her remarks with mixed feelings, because she singled out Tasmania for some special attention. What we heard was a very poor dividend for 16 years of Labor and Labor-Greens government in Hobart and six years of Labor and Labor-Greens government, here, in Canberra. At that time, the unemployment rate in Tasmania was the highest in the country. The participation rate was the lowest. Opposition members interjecting— Mr NIKOLIC: Members opposite can laugh at that, but it was a serious state of affairs affecting many people in my community. There had been 11,000 full-time jobs lost, in Tasmania, between 2010 and 2013. In 2010, you might recall, the Bartlett government began its alliance with the Greens. I have a quote from The Examiner dating back to 16 February 2012. It states: A predicted underlying surplus has been revised as a big deficit … economic growth is expected to decline … the Government will fail to meet savings targets … unemployment will continue to be relatively high … on top of this gloomy set of numbers, the forestry peace process has collapsed … Ms Giddings and her Greens cabinet colleague Nick McKim are at war … cabinet solidarity has been so bastardised as to be unrecognisable. It was so bad that the front page of The Examiner on 12 July 2013, just before the 2013 election, announced that Kevin Rudd, the then Prime Minister, was coming to Tasmania on a rescue mission on the back of the worst employment figures in Tasmania in the last 10 years. So it is little wonder that Labor got the worst vote in a century at the 2013 election and the Giddings government was thrown out in 2014. It is little wonder today that Tasmanians fear the return of the Labor frontbench, because it is pretty much unchanged from the same group that caused such economic vandalism from 2008 to 2013. We have a situation today where we borrow $1 billion every month just to pay the interest on our debt. That is $12 billion per year—an extraordinary opportunity cost that would fund 12 new teaching hospitals in this country. Dr Chalmers: The deficit is twice as big now! Mr NIKOLIC: I have news for the member for Rankin, who keeps interjecting: Australians do not want a return of Labor's economic plan. They do not want your tax, borrow and spend plan. What sort of plan is that? The member for Rankin celebrated that our debt to GDP ratio was below that of Spain, Greece and the other sick countries of Europe. Australia does not want your economic plan, member for Rankin, because you and your frontbench are at the heart of the economic problems that befall our country today. It is not the plan that Australians want, and the chief culprits of that economic vandalism sit opposite. What they want is resolve. They want the economic recovery plan that is being delivered to Tasmania with a joint Commonwealth and Tasmanian Economic Council and a major projects approval agency— (Time expired) The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Mitchell ): The time for the discussion has concluded, it being 4:39 pm.