Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

This is a great country because Australians do just that when there's a crisis. We've responded so well because we've come together. We've stayed together. In all the challenges we have seen around the world, our society has performed the best because people have come together in an unprecedented way. Through its economic agenda, the government supports all of the work that Australians are doing and will continue to make those investments in people and businesses as we go forward.

We've seen, of course, JobTrainer, our modern manufacturing strategy and the biggest investment that we have seen in the Australian defence industry, meaning we will have a long-term, sustainable manufacturing industry here in Australia. We continue to see that at record levels of spending.

When they put that together, Australians know that the Morrison coalition government has got their back. Every single day, when they go back to work, when they go back to re-open those businesses to get their customers back in, they go back to work on their farms, in their businesses, in their lives, they'll have a government that does not want to punish them for getting back, getting on with it and recovering from what has been a very difficult period. Instead, this government will continue to incentivise people to get on with their lives and make the decisions they need to make. We won't punish them. Of course we won't use the tax system to punish them for the choices they make. We can solve the world's problems and Australians' problems with our positive plans and incentives that rely on the good nature of humans, the development of technology and the real science that means we can answer these questions. Our government knows it. We're going to back technology. We aren't going to use taxes. We are going to let the Australian people get on with it, get back on their feet and get back to what they do best: running their own lives.

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