House debates

Thursday, 27 February 2014

Questions without Notice

Economy

2:21 pm

Photo of Joe HockeyJoe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lindsay for her question and recognise that she is obviously very focused on the issues which are directly relevant to the long-term interests of her community. That is unlike her predecessor, who was part of a government that let go of Australia. They lost control of the Australian economy. That was best illustrated by the fact they lost control of the Australian budget. It has just been revealed by the IMF that—under the last Labor regime—for the six years going forward, the legacy of Labor on the budget, from 2012 to 2018, is that we would have the largest increase in spending of the 17 IMF advanced economies profiled. So Labor buried in the budget spending increases faster than any other major advanced economy in the world—more than Korea, Canada, Germany, France or Japan. That is Labor's legacy—big promises, big spending and 'Don't worry about the bills; someone else will have to pay them.'

The challenge is: we have to rein that in. It is impossible to have an economy saddled with the biggest spending promises of any advanced nation in the world. Labor promised everything but they delivered little. When it comes to productivity, when it comes to the capacity of the Australian economy to produce more, the Labor Party left us behind. In fact, if we want to sustain our national income growth just at our 30-year average, if we want to sustain our quality of life just at our 30-year average, we have to increase labour productivity growth to over three per cent a year. Currently it is stuck at around two per cent. That three per cent would be a historic high.

What does that legacy mean for Lindsay? Under the infrastructure Prime Minister and the infrastructure government, we will get on with the job of building things like WestConnex. What does that mean? For Western Sydney, WestConnex will allow the constituents of Lindsay to bypass 52 sets of traffic lights and save over 40 minutes on their trips to Sydney. What does that mean for productivity? It means that the trucks and the transport that are driving the Australian economy and the economy of Western Sydney will get a fair go, will get the opportunity to do more with less. That is what it is about. It is a huge task. Instead of the opposition bleating, I say to the opposition: get on the agenda. We are dealing with your legacy of debt, deficit and structural problems. Get on board with trying to fix it!

Comments

Harry Makris
Posted on 1 Mar 2014 12:56 pm

theacademyplanet.
..the challenge is to energise the whole economy rather than promote one off programs like West'Con'ex with its inevitable cost blowouts and questionable outcomes..Money will be made by a select few at taxpayers expense....

..The real challenge Mr Hockey, is the restructuring of the Tax System....Dump Income Tax...and move to a user pays system....

Those who have met their obligations will have more disposable income...

Those who have already been avoiding their obligations by the various means available will receive little benefit...they have not been paying anyway.....but they will under a user pays system....

Let everyone make as much money as they like... and tax them when they spend it.(otherwise the money is useless)..

..Tax the top end where the money is and where taxation revenue has been lost... but leave bread and milk alone so to speak......

To recap...
Dump Income Tax...no more Tax breaks..everyone pays as they go....