Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Does the Treasurer stand by his statement of yesterday in relation to the now Prime Minister, 'He's never said to me or the cabinet that we are heading in the wrong economic direction'? Does the Treasurer agree with the Prime Minister?

Mr Turnbull interjecting—

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know—that is right. The Labor Party are verballing again. This is familiar territory for them. Australia is heading in the right economic direction, but we have still got work to do. There is no suggestion that it is mission accomplished. There is so much more work to be done. On the coalition side, we will not give up until the job is complete, and we are a very long way from completion point. We still have a tax reform process to prepare the taxation system for the 21st century. We have received 850 submissions in relation to the taxation white paper. It has been coalition policy to fix the federation, to work with the states in a constructive way and to get rid of the duplication—that is hugely important. I am sure the new Prime Minister will take up that with great relish—trying to fix the federation.

It is also the case that we are rolling out the biggest infrastructure program in Australia's history. More than $50 billion in new additional productive infrastructure is going to deliver $130 billion of new projects, backed by the single most significant microeconomic reform in recent years, which is the asset recycling program. If you look at, for example, Sydney, where you have a Premier in that state who is willing to work with the federal government, today there are 75 registered cranes in the middle of the Sydney CBD and 165 within a kilometre around that CBD. That is because you have a Premier who is engaging with the Commonwealth government on an asset recycling program where, if he sells assets such as poles and wires and uses the proceeds to go into new infrastructure, we provide a 15 per cent bonus to the state to help them with that new infrastructure. That is why you get 160-odd new cranes within one kilometre of a CBD like New South Wales. We hope that the rest of Australia takes that up as well.

There are many areas to continue the reform. Budget reform is absolutely essential. There is still $18 billion of savings held up. We have already delivered $50 billion of savings. That is hugely important. It helps to improve the budget bottom line.

But there is more work to be done, and the one significant initiative that Labor could support immediately to help to create jobs and to build a stronger economy would be to back the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement. The Labor Party can no longer sit on the fence about this. This is about jobs and better-paying jobs for Australian workers and they should immediately back the initiatives that the coalition government has put in place to strengthen the Australian economy such as the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement.