Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is for the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer outline to the House how this government is growing the Australian economy and how that economic growth is helping Australian families, workers and businesses? Will the Treasurer share with the House what he sees as the biggest threats to the Australian economy?

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Canning for his question. I'm glad to get a question on the economy, because the Labor Party has delivered more invisible surpluses than the member for McMahon has had questions in this place.

As the member for Canning knows, when you grow the economy, you create jobs and you can provide the essential services that the Australian people need and deserve. We have been growing the economy at 3.4 per cent through the year. We have created more than a million new jobs. We have had our AAA credit rating reaffirmed recently, from the three leading rating agencies. We have delivered a budget deficit for 2017-18 which is at the lowest level in a decade and we are on track to come back to balance in 2019-20, a year earlier than expected. These are the results of a government that believes in lower taxes, a government that believes in lower regulations, a government that believes in more free trade and a government that believes in rewarding people for hard work. As Sir Robert Menzies said more than 70 years ago, it's the Liberal Party that believes in the power of the individual and their enterprise, and it's the Liberal Party that rejects the socialist panacea put by those opposite.

Now the Labor Party are getting arrogant. As we get closer to an election, they think it's in the bag. They are taking the Australian people for granted. We are starting to get a closer look at what they believe, like the member for Lilley, the incoming president of the Labor Party, who said that Labor's goal was to tear down neo-liberalism. He was praising Bernie Sanders, as the Labor Party has rejected the legacy of Hawke and Keating and embraced the Corbyn-Sanders approach. The member for Fenner gave a speech praising Friedrich Engels of Marx and Engels fame. We all know what the member for Sydney said—aspiration is a mystery. That's what we have heard from the member for Sydney. We know that the ACTU secretary, if Labor gets to government, will be counselling the cabinet on which laws do not apply to them. That's what we are going to see from a Labor Party in government—higher taxes, higher spending, union domination, and a view that government always knows best. In contrast, the Liberal Party and the National Party believe in the individual and their enterprise. (Time expired)