Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also thank the member for Longman. Our economy is getting stronger. There is absolutely no doubt about that. We see that day in and day out, every time new economic figures are released. Just last week, we saw unemployment fall to five per cent, while the participation rate in the labour market went up. When you look at what this government has managed to achieve since 2013, it is quite an extraordinary achievement. Government borrowings through the budget are down, employment is up, taxes are down, work participation is up and welfare dependency is down. Inflation, wages, all these things are at record highs or lows. Everything that should be up is up and everything that should be down is down. What we got under the opposition when they were in government was completely the opposite. It was reverso-world. The geniuses on the other side of the chamber managed to turn an $80 billion net negative government borrowing requirement into a $280 billion deficit in three short years. They took a $25 billion federal budget surplus that they inherited and turned that in one year into a $50 billion deficit. They had the gall to come into this House and say to the Australian people that they think they can manage the economy. Well, we have seen this show before. We have seen what those opposite do when given a chance to show that they're a mature government, a mature group of individuals. The louder they shout, the closer we know we're getting to the truth about what they're really up to.

Ms Claydon interjecting—

The member for Newcastle can shout as much as she likes, but she knows I'm on to something. She knows it because she has been hiding it the whole time.

You cannot have a strong aged-care system, you cannot have a strong education system, you cannot have a strong health system without a strong economy. And the reason we know this is because the Australian people, in a moment of insanity, elected the Rudd government. In that particular moment, what we ended up with was a system that couldn't afford to put drugs on the PBS. We couldn't afford an education policy. They announced Gonski 1.0 when it should have been Gonski 0.0 because the fact of the matter was they couldn't fund it past four years because they knew, in their heart of hearts, they didn't have a term in them. I think they know now that Bill Shorten, if he was so lucky to trip and fall over the line, would be lucky to make it one term before they were begging us to come back into government to fix their problems. From the NDIS to education to the PBS, all of it just imploded under these blokes. Has anything changes? All the same characters are there. The actors are the same. Frankly, the script hasn't even changed. In fact, frankly, nothing has changed over there. All they have got is empty rhetoric, sloganeering and what have we got? We got a proven track record of delivering. If they weren't shouting so much, they might learn a thing or two. You can borrow any of our policies you want.

An honourable member interjecting—

Maybe you should turn your microphone down. The long and short of it is that all of this is absolutely critical to ensuring that we have an aged-care system that can deliver for people who are at the end of their lives and this can only be done with a strong economy. The reason it can only be done with a strong economy is because it costs money.

I often find it interesting that both sides tend to want to make criticisms of each other about the aged-care system. But the fact is, as someone who worked in it for 15, 16 years, I think both sides have a lot to be proud of in this system. It was in 1987 that the Hawke government allowed this system to be opened up. All of the Howard reforms, the Butler reforms, the reforms under Kevin Andrews and Julie Bishop led to a massive improvement in the quality of care that older Australians, that our tribal elders, receive. But we must be under no delusion. This can only have been delivered through the record funding that this government has provided to aged care and that's why I recommend this House pass this motion.

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