Julian Simmonds (Ryan, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's a pleasure to speak on this MPI because it gives me an opportunity to reinforce for Australians and for the residents of Ryan just how important it is that we stick with the Morrison government's stable and certain economic plan. What you have just heard from Labor members opposite is the same thing they say every time, which is talking down the Australian economy time and time again and the politics of economic panic. That is what the Labor members want to foster—a climate of economic panic. Why? Because they think it will move them on from the last election result, so they can ignore the last election result and not learn any lessons from it and get back to their tax-and-spend agenda. That's why they're still holding onto Labor's economic plan of $387 billion worth of new taxes, because they hope that, if they hang on to it long enough—if they hang on by their fingernails, knuckles going white—somehow the Australian people will forget how much and how far they wanted to reach into their pocket, and that the tide will turn. Well, the simple fact is, it won't.

The Australian people understand how much they need the Morrison government's stable and certain economic plan now. Every time the Labor Party get in, they wreck the joint. They absolutely wreck the budget. We've seen it time and time again. They inherited a surplus last time they came into government, and they racked up $240 billion in deficits over six years. It is extraordinary stuff, superhuman stuff to achieve that kind of turnaround in economic performance in such a short period of time. I was four years old last time Labor managed to deliver a surplus—four! That is their economic record, because they have never found a problem that they can't tax and spend their way out of, and that's in sharp contrast to the Morrison government—$387 billion worth of taxes is Labor's economic plan. On their economic plan—taxes on retirees, housing, income, investments, family businesses, electricity and cars—the Australian people have already had their say. In contrast, the Morrison government has a stable and certain economic plan.

I was just sitting here during question time jotting away how comprehensive this economic plan is: a budget back in black so that we can start to pay down the debt. Employment growth is three times what we inherited from Labor. We have 5.3 per cent unemployment, down from 5.7 per cent under Labor. The shadow Treasurer should be listening, because I know he loves stats. Well, here's a few stats that he's no doubt finding it hard to hear: 1.4 million jobs created under this government; real wage growth compared to real wage decrease under the Labor members opposite; and tax cuts for 10 million Australians—Australian families now have more money in their pocket to look after and support their families and make the decisions about their family and their family spending that they want to make, not that the Labor Party want to make, not that the shadow Treasurer wants to make on their behalf, but that Australian families want to make on their own behalf. And there are free trade agreements which will account for 80 per cent of our trade by 2020, $100 billion in our infrastructure pipeline, a fully funded NDIS, a 60 per cent increase in school funding, record funding for hospitals, funding for 80,000 new apprenticeships, 10,000 new home care packages, on average a new medicine on the PBS every day—and what an achievement that is after the Labor Party, the Labor members opposite, had to stop listing life-saving medicines on the PBS because fiscal circumstances wouldn't allow it.

I could go on and on, but I just wanted to give the chamber a bit of a flavour—that when the shadow Treasurer stands in this place and claims that we need an economic plan what he's really saying is that he wants Australians to have Labor's economic plan—the tax-and-spend plan—as opposed to the Morrison government's plan, which is clearly yielding results, creating jobs, creating higher real wage growth than the Labor Party ever managed to do, and putting more choice in the pockets of everyday Australian families. Australians can trust this government with the economic security of our country, and they can't trust the tax-and-spend Labor members.

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