Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Forde for his question. He was re-elected at the last election on a platform that the Turnbull government is always doing things to drive investment and to secure the confidence of investors to invest in the jobs that are generated by that investment, the more and better paid jobs coming under this government, with some 325,000 jobs created in the last year alone. In the budget we said yes. We said yes to $75 billion in nation-building infrastructure investment to drive investment, whereas the Labor Party continue to say no. They said no to the East West Link. They said no to WestConnex. They've even said no today to the extension in southern Sydney. They've said no to their own electorates, like the shadow Treasurer did on the Western Sydney Airport being in Fairfield. They are saying no to these projects. We said yes to cutting taxes for the small and medium sized businesses—and legislated to do that—that now cover half of the Australian labour force. The Labor Party said no to cutting those taxes—they're saying no to ensuring that Australian businesses have a competitive tax rate right across the board. That's necessary because of taxes being cut in France, in the United Kingdom, in the United States and also in China, where they're looking to do the same thing.

In the budget we said yes to all of these initiatives to drive investment. Yesterday we said yes to providing certainty for investment in boosting energy supply through the National Energy Guarantee that will make power more affordable and more reliable and achieve our environmental commitments. Business and industry have said yes to that. Economists have said yes to that. The Chief Scientist has said yes to the National Energy Guarantee. What have Labor done again? Labor have said no. Labor have no plans for investment certainty. They only have a plan to say no on every single occasion, as this government works to drive investment that supports jobs, that supports certainty, that supports higher paid jobs and that supports a growing economy. What they do is look for any excuse to say no—any and every excuse. They will sink to seeking to discredit and bully even an Energy Security Board with people appointed by Labor state governments on it. We've seen them in interview after interview seeking to undermine those independently appointed members of that board—seeking to bully and intimidate like the unions whose behaviour they defend and protect in this place every single day. The recipe from those opposite is higher taxes and higher subsidies—$66 million in higher costs for Australian business and consumers, which means less investment. (Time expired)

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