Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Social Services. Will the minister outline to the House the impact of the job-creating China-Australia Free Trade Agreement on expenditure on social services, particularly in my home state of Western Australia? Are there any potential impediments to these impacts being realised?

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind the member for Adelaide that she has been warned.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Cowan for his question. He knows that eight out of 10 taxpayers go to work every day to pay for this country's social services bill. Of that, some $12 billion is paid in job seeker benefits. There are some 77,000 job seekers in Western Australia who receive those benefits, including some 4,300 in his own seat of Cowan and some 6,800 in the seat of Canning. The best way to reduce and get under control the social services budget is to ensure there are more people in work. As the Treasurer has rightly explained, there are some 300,000 more people who have jobs today than there were at the last election, over 30,000 of those in Western Australia. If you want to get the social services budget under control, you need to get people off welfare and you need to get them into jobs. And you know where those jobs are coming from? They are coming from innovative new free trade agreements—export agreements like the one negotiated by the Minister for Trade and Investment. To get your welfare budget under control, there is no substitute for getting people off welfare and into work.

I am asked what the potential impediments are to these impacts being felt in Western Australia, in the seat of Canning among other places. Those impediments sit opposite. Members will remember that this is 'the year of the idea'. The idea that the Leader of the Opposition has had is to oppose the most innovative free trade agreement with an Asian country that the world has seen. That is a festival of dangerous ideas.

The Leader of the Opposition is the person standing in the way of the prosperity and jobs that this free trade agreement will deliver, and he is doing so on the basis of Labor's opposition—alleged—to 457 visas. The shadow Treasurer had quite a record when he was in government. When he was the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, he set several records, the most important being that around 25,000 people arrived illegally by boat on his watch. But there was another one! He also held the record for the highest number of 457 visas granted by any immigration minister. Since the last election, the number of 457 visas granted has fallen by 25 per cent. The number of 457 visas granted in Western Australia has fallen by 40 per cent. I know those opposite are worried about electricians coming in on 457 visas—they have fallen by more than 66 per cent under this government. They say they are worried about 457 visas, but in Western Australia the number of electricians coming in on 457 visas has fallen by 78 per cent. The record for foreign workers coming in on 457 visas is held by the shadow Treasurer, the former Minister for Immigration and Citizenship—the worst immigration minister we have ever seen. (Time expired)