Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister to the Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The member for McMahon talked about paying the price. Well, we are absolutely paying the price for six years of incompetence of which he was a part. There were six years of incompetence when the member for McMahon was the worst immigration minister this country has ever seen. Then those opposite were unceremoniously turfed from the Treasury benches with an $18 billion black hole. So we are paying the price for six years of Labor.

What is worse is that those opposite have the audacity to come into this place, after trying to frustrate every attempt at turbocharging the economy or improving the budget, and complain. The member for McMahon and the Labor Party have been completely taken over by the hard left of their party. That is true of every single policy adopted by the Labor Party now. I see the member for Scullin smiling. I know he is very happy with his takeover of the party. That the member for McMahon opposes every single policy on improving jobs and investment in our economy is an absolute disgrace.

In looking at how the economy is travelling, the government and I accept that there are always things that we as a government and parliament should do better. But we are the fastest growing economy in the G7. Let's not forget that. We had growth in the last quarter of 1.1 per cent, a very encouraging number. We have unemployment at 5.9 per cent. Everything we are doing is geared towards increasing investment and increasing opportunities for Australians, which ultimately will increase wages and increase the number of jobs in the economy.

The member for McMahon sounded as though he was arguing against himself in his speech when arguing against the company tax cuts, because we have all seen various members of the government come to the dispatch box with the book written by the member for McMahon. I have not read it, and I would not buy it. But I have lots of good quotes from the book, I can assure you. As the member for McMahon has said:

It's a Labor thing to have the ambition of reducing company tax, because it promotes investment, creates jobs and drives growth.

So the member for McMahon was arguing against himself for 10 minutes.

Dr Chalmers interjecting—

I see the member for Rankin very loyally supporting the member for McMahon. He said:

… Australia would go well out of a lower company rate than it is right now.

The member from Rankin also said:

You're right that Bill said that in the medium term it would be a good aspiration to have a lower company rate.

So we had every member of the Labor economic team arguing for company tax cuts. But now the member for Scullin and the hard left of the Labor Party have completely taken over the economic narrative and they are now saying, 'No, we don't want to be internationally competitive.'

We have also seen the Labor Party, hijacked by the CFMEU and others, arguing against the China-Australia free trade agreement. We all recall the Leader of the Opposition referring to it as—

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