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

I thank the member for Robertson for your question. Whether it is in the Central Coast of New South Wales or all across Australia, our government is working to make Australia stronger. We have been making Australia stronger, and we have put in place the plans, which I have spoken of in recent weeks, to ensure that we continue to make Australia stronger.

It is true that 1.2 million jobs have been created under the policy settings of our government. It is true that unemployment has fallen to five per cent under the policy settings of the government. It is true that we've been able to maintain Australia's AAA credit rating under extreme pressure with the economic circumstances around the globe. It is true that we will hand down the first surplus budget that a government of this country has done in 12 years, on 2 April. It is also true that we have legislated for lower taxes for 10 million Australians and 3.3 million small and family businesses—$144 billion worth of personal tax relief, which the Labor Party, if elected, will halve. They will halve the income tax relief that we are offering to Australians and, indeed, have legislated to do. The services have been guaranteed: record health funding, record hospital funding, record levels of bulkbilling, record levels of putting pharmaceuticals on the PBS—all supported by a strong economy.

When it comes to national security, we have also been on the job—4,150 visas of serious criminals cancelled by this government, and we sent them packing. Under the previous government, they did less in six years than we did in just last year, when it comes to dealing with serious criminals. The previous government under the Labor Party and their successive failures of immigration ministers allowed bikies to remain in the country unchallenged and other serious criminals who they refused to act upon. Fourteen terrorist attacks have been thwarted by the excellent work of our security agencies that we have restored their funding to. Defence spending has been a priority, taking us back to two per cent of the size of the economy, ahead of our promise.

Now, we've also kept our borders secure. This's what we have done. When we came to government, we had the plan to stop the boats and we have indeed stopped them. We have closed 19 detention centres, when the Labor Party opened 17. And we have maintained the integrity of our border protection regime. But there is one enemy of that border protection regime in this parliament, and it's the Labor Party. They are the ones who came into this parliament last week and deliberately and wilfully sought to thwart our border protection regime. It was a problem that our government fixed. There is no need for a further solution, because it's working. The Labor Party showed their manifest weakness in undermining it.

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

The Prime Minister's time has concluded. The member for Barton.