In an attempt to assert that interest rates were lower under the Coalition Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey, reading from his own fact sheet, admitted that rates were actually higher under them.

HOCKEY:  I actually have the figures here.  Ah, the, ah, the, at 6.75 per cent, the cash rate – do you want to give me a year when that may be?  Say when we left office.  It was, ah, the cash rate November 2007: 8.55 per cent.

SWAN:  Variable.

HOCKEY:  The variable.  Right?  The variable rate.  8.55 per cent.  Now it’s 7.4 per cent –

SWAN:  That’s right.

Mr Hockey blew up the remnants of the Liberals’ dishonest debt campaign when he said that Australia’s Budget position is “the envy of the developed world.”

He went further, acknowledging that faced with the onslaught from the global recession the Coalition “would have had, obviously, a deficit.”

The Labor Government have won praise from the OECD, the IMF and economists, including Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, for its handling of the economy through the financial crisis and acting quickly.

Having kept Australia out of recession, the Labor Government is building a stronger economy.