Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question and also congratulate him on his new book, which I will be participating in the launch of later today. Congratulations do go to him. He is a member who understands the need for economic reform, as do all government members. This is a key divide in this contemporary parliament, where the government remains committed to continuing economic reform in order to seize the opportunities our nation now has, emerging as strongly as it is from the global financial crisis.

The foundation stone of economic reform is fiscal consolidation and that means that we will bring the budget back to surplus in 2012-13, but economic reform requires us to do more. It requires us to lift the speed limits on the economy, to make sure that we are investing in the drivers of productivity and participation. That is why the government is committed to a reform program which includes cutting company tax. We want to see balanced economic growth. We want to see Australian companies strong. Our reforms include special benefits for small business, because we understand that in the modern economy small business people are drivers of economic growth.

Our reform program also lifts the speed limits of the economy by investing in infrastructure—that is, traditional infrastructure like roads, like rail, like ports, but in the 21st century it is also the infrastructure of our age: the National Broadband Network. That is why we are committed to delivering the National Broadband Network—so that our nation does not end up exporting jobs to places like Korea and Singapore because they have better economic infrastructure than us.

Reform and lifting the speed limits of the economy also requires investments in skills, in human capital, and the government remains committed to its transformational agenda in human capital, ranging from the education of our smallest children through school education, vocational education and training and into universities. We also remain committed to delivering a seamless national economy. Australian business should not be tied up in red tape because of the existence of differential regulation in different parts of the country. This remains a key reform driver for this government, including in the area of occupational health and safety.

We intend to take the market based tools of reform into the areas of education and health to drive further reform. It was a great pleasure yesterday, with the Minister for Health and Ageing and the Treasurer, to talk publicly in this place about our health reform agenda, one that now appears to be opposed by the Liberal Party. We will also bring a reform drive to the question of pricing carbon and dealing with water. Our nation deserves leadership on these questions. We cannot afford to see the Liberal Party in this place turn its back on reform. We will continue to drive reform, but we do say to the Liberal Party: now is the time to stay determined on a reform course; do not submit to economic Hansonism; do not submit to the Leader of the Opposition’s leadership approach of looking for things to wreck rather than things to build.

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