This year's G20: getting the fundamentals right

Then, a subsequent government decided that the Crisis had changed the rules and that we should spend our way to prosperity.

The reason for spending soon passed but the spending didn't stop because, when it comes to spending, governments can be like addicts in search of a fix.

But after the recent election, Australia is under new management and open for business.

To boost private sector growth and employment, the new Government is cutting red tape and reducing the tax burden by scrapping the carbon tax and the mining tax.

We've established a once-in-a-generation Commission of Audit to re-consider the size, scope and efficiency of government.

We're streamlining environmental approvals and have already ticked off new projects worth over $400 billion.

We've successfully concluded negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement with South Korea and are working on agreements with Japan, China, India and Indonesia as well as wider ones such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

With an ageing population, we're implementing measures to get more people into work: like a 'fair dinkum' (as we say in Australia) paid parental leave scheme to give mothers in the workforce their full wage for six months.

We're investigating childcare changes that will respond to modern families participating in a round-the-clock economy.

We're determined that fit working age people will work, preferably for a wage but, if not, as a condition of receiving unemployment benefits.

We'll do more to keep people with temporary health conditions in the workforce, rather than on a pension.

And we're accelerating the construction of major infrastructure, especially roads, because time spent in traffic jams is time lost from work and family.