Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the government's economic achievements, including how the Australian Building and Construction Commission will help to reduce the cost of construction and support hardworking Australians?

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

I thank the honourable member for her question. Shortly after the election, I said in this place that the 45th Parliament will be a term of delivery. I made it clear that we were committed to making the parliament work in delivering the important reforms we took to the people during the election that will continue to drive strong economic growth and the jobs that flow from it and to preserve our standard of living. Only months into the new parliament, that is exactly what we are doing. We are delivering on our election commitments, and we are providing the strong and stable economic leadership that Australians deserve. That is the leadership that enables us to meet and beat the economic headwinds that we face in the world today. The opposition, on the other hand, are determined to spread a miasma of fear and gloom with falsehoods; their imagination boundless in terms of the way they avoid the truth. They will never let the truth stand in the way of a political attack. But we will continue to get on with the job.

Since the election, we have delivered $20 billion in gross budget repairs. We have passed important changes to Australia's superannuation system, which make it more sustainable and much fairer. We have delivered tax cuts for half a million middle-income Australians, and we have passed the registered organisations bill, which ensures that union bosses are now accountable to their members in the same way that company directors are accountable to their shareholders. You would think that the union movement would have embraced it, but, no, Labor and the Greens fought tooth and nail against it. You would think that the Australian Building and Construction Commission legislation would also have the backing of Labor and the Greens. You would think that they would get behind it because, after all, what does it do? It restores the rule of law to the construction sector. And here in parliament what are we pledged to uphold? The rule of law?

Mr Shorten interjecting—

The Constitution, the Leader of the Opposition says. Fair enough—that is the foundation document of the rule of law. And so we seek to uphold it. We do, but the Labor Party opposes it, and they oppose it because they are wholly owned subsidiaries of militant unions who want to continue defying the law, want to continue their bullying, their thuggery, the way in which they add billions of dollars to cost to construction around Australia, fleecing taxpayers, fleecing homeowners, fleecing businesses. The rule of law must be restored, the thuggery must stop and the parliament should pass the bill to reinstate the Australian Building and Construction Commission.