Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister outline to the House what the government has done and is doing to support investment and help grow the economy?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. He is a great Tasmanian, and one who understands the way in which the free trade agreements and the growing export boom to Asia, particularly from soft commodities, are supporting jobs and investment and growth in his state and, indeed, right across Australia. That is a key platform, a key pillar, of our approach to ensuring that we benefit from this growing global economy as we transition from an economy that was, in large part, led by a mining construction boom which has now toned down. In addition to that, as I said earlier today, we have a $1.1 billion national innovation and science agenda that is driving the jobs and the investment, the commercialisation and the research upon which our children's and grandchildren's futures depend. It is supporting STEM in schools. It is supporting teachers teaching computer coding right across the country—the literacy of the 21st century.

We saw in December the highest female participation rate in the labour force in our history. That is a tribute to the resilience of our economy, and it underlines the importance of our $3.2 billion childcare subsidy, which will make it more affordable for more women on lower and lower middle incomes to be able to work and to stay connected to the labour market. In terms of infrastructure, we have a $50 billion infrastructure program right across the country—building the roads and, indeed, the rail of the 21st century—and we are completing the National Broadband Network, so poorly conceived by the Labor Party, much sooner and at much lower cost.

The contrast with the opposition could not be clearer. Their reckless policy on negative gearing is absolutely calculated to put the skids under property prices. There is no point in Labor pretending it is not going to have an impact. The professor of economics himself, today, in that same Sky interview, did concede it would cause prices to moderate. So he concedes it will have an impact on prices, but he asserts, on the basis of no evidence, that you can take more than a third of the buyers out of the ring and prices will be unaffected. You do not need a PhD in economics to understand that if you take a third of the buyers out prices will come down—and so they will—and those house values underpin consumption. They underpin investment. They underpin consumer confidence. This is taking an axe to confidence; it is taking an axe to the economy.