Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Community Housing, Homelessness and Community Services) Share this | Hansard source

Absolutely, through you, Mr Deputy Speaker—if I can get a word in between those opposite. We hear the Leader of the Opposition talking about how Labor are somehow the masters of the economy. The last time the Labor Party ran a surplus in this place was 30 years ago—I was finishing high school—and we continue to see failure from those opposite.

There are so many good policies. Let's talk about what the Prime Minister said in August. In August, the Prime Minister secured the agreement of all state and territory leaders to ban the export of waste, plastic, paper, glass and tyres. All of Australia's environment ministers have agreed that we will deal with our own waste here. That's why we've put $167 million into an Australian recycling plan—to grow and strengthen Australia's recycling industry. There's $100 million for the Australian Recycling Investment Fund. And it goes on. There's $20 million to make sure that the recycling of e-waste, mobile phones, tyres and computers is managed here, locally. There's $20 million for a new cooperative research centre to help with plastics. There's $16 million for our Pacific neighbours to help reduce plastics and other waste in our oceans. There's more than $11 million for community action, right across our electorates and to the Labor members as well. If you go across any electorate, there are environmental grants rolling out across this country. There are things like Seabins going into marinas to help collect plastic. There are things like Green Army projects to help replant native plants and vegetation. And that's just on the environment.

We know that the coalition has created over 1.4 million new jobs, and part of that has been through free trade agreements. For those people in the gallery: we have a population of 25 million people in this country and under our free trade agreements we've opened up a market to two billion people across the world—80 times the population of Australia. We've got $100 billion going into infrastructure projects around the country, including in my own electorate—for things like the Linkfield Road overpass in Aspley—and $1 billion of that $100 billion to upgrade the Gateway Motorway from Bracken Ridge, at St John Fisher, through to the Pine River. I've got to say: the state government is dragging the chain here; the Palaszczuk government is dragging the chain. When it comes to infrastructure investment, the states are the ones that roll it out—like Queensland's Department of Transport and Main Roads.

We're continuing to do a lot. We do need the states to catch up a little bit, particularly on dams and water as well. When it comes to education, we're continuing to roll out increased funding for education. I had to laugh at the member for Hotham's contribution the other day in The Courier Mail on 11 October. This is the member for Hotham:

We haven't had a really good conversation in Canberra about why, even though we're spending more money on schools all the time. Our performance is pretty static …

Well, thank you, Member for Hotham. For the first time in the last six years, that I can remember, a member of the Labor Party is actually saying we're investing more in schools. In every school in my own electorate and the member for Capricornia's electorate, and right around this country, school funding continues to go up. In relation to universities, in my own electorate, we're also seeing the first university on the Sunshine Coast being built at Petrie. So we're seeing plenty of investment. We know that with health we've recently added medicines to treat lung cancer and leukaemia—all on the PBS—and, in some cases, saving patients up to $100,000 a year. That increase in investment, in education and in health can only be done because of a strong economy, yet those opposite continually want to whack the economy. They want to put more taxes on business. They want to put more taxes on individuals. It's just not acceptable; it's not great for our economy. We can't continue to invest if we bring in new taxes.

The coalition government has done a lot. We're focused on the Australian people. The Prime Minister, the Hon. Scott Morrison, is focused on the Australian people. That's why we're here in Canberra. We're here to represent our electorates. We're here to represent the needs of Australians. We're not here to talk down the economy—everything that we'll hear from those opposite in a moment.

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