Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The matter that I'm addressing is the important issues that we are dealing with now and the House should be dealing with because the issue about the Constitution is, as the member for Denison said, going to be considered by the High Court.

But let me get back to the most important obligation of government, which is keeping Australians safe. In the last few weeks, we saw the most dangerous, potent terrorist plot in our history disrupted and contained. We saw extraordinary work from ASIO, the Federal Police and the New South Wales Police Force—all our agencies working together. This government—my government—has never been prouder of our agencies than we were when we saw them frustrate that plot and have those two men charged, knowing that their action, their professionalism and their courage has saved hundreds of lives.

We have been working, too, to relieve the pressure on energy prices. We're taking action to bring down the price of gas simply by ensuring that Labor's failure of policy is not continued and there will be adequate gas supplies on the east coast. That's an urgent matter the House could be debating. That's an urgent matter upon which we are acting. Of course, in the right now and in the here and now, so many Australian families and businesses are paying more than they need to for electricity. That's very clear. They're on the wrong plan. They were on a plan, then that expired and nobody told them what was going to happen. They find themselves paying much higher rates. Literally millions of households are paying more for electricity than they need to. We've taken action and brought in the heads of the big electricity companies. What they're doing is they are now contacting their customers and telling them of the opportunities to pay less for electricity. That is ensuring that Australian families who are feeling the pinch and who are struggling with higher costs will have the opportunity to get the information to get them on the right prices.

In the last 12 months, we have seen 240,000 new jobs created in Australia. The Leader of the Opposition talked about it being a jobless economy with no job growth. Two hundred and forty thousand new jobs is a lot of jobs—believe me. The participation rate is high. We're seeing strong jobs growth. What we're not seeing is enough growth in wages, and that is why we want to drive stronger economic growth. Let me tell you what will deliver higher wages: higher economic growth and higher demand. The Governor of the Reserve Bank said just a few days ago: 'If labour markets are strong, workers will get bigger pay rises. Where there's strong demand relative to supply, wages will rise.' There's very strong demand for some types of construction workers because of the infrastructure spending of this government. That's what's happening. We're spending money on infrastructure—$75 billion. So the Governor of the Reserve Bank acknowledges that there's demand there. He notes there's demand in some other areas—in IT—but we need stronger demand. What is going to give stronger demand? What is it? It's more investment. How do you get more investment? You reduce business taxes. The opposition used to know that. That cowardly fellow, who always turns his back when things get a little uncomfortable, the Leader of the Opposition, knows exactly what happened.

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