Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer remind the House why the Morrison government's recent budget was so important in protecting Australian jobs and livelihoods during this ongoing COVID-19 pandemic? Is the Treasurer aware of any alternative policies?

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

I thank the member for Swan for his question, and I acknowledge his experience as a sparky and his experience, for 30 years, in small business, in an air-conditioning business, and in importing and exporting. More than 20,000 small and medium-sized businesses in his electorate are getting access to the immediate expensing provisions that we announced in this year's budget.

Now, the outbreak in New South Wales is another reminder that the pandemic is with us. And—despite Australia's success in suppressing the virus compared to many other countries around the world, and our success in undergoing a very significant economic recovery—the outbreak in New South Wales is a reminder that the pandemic is not over. This was the backdrop for the recent budget, a budget where we announced an additional $41 billion in direct COVID related support. We extended the low- and middle-income tax offset for another year, providing more than 10 million Australians with tax relief, rewarding hardworking Australians, encouraging aspiration and putting more money back into their pockets, and extended the immediate expensing provisions for another year, including the loss carry-back measure, which will cover around $320 billion of investment. We're seeing the results of those programs, including machinery and equipment investment having its strongest numbers in nearly 18 years in the recent national accounts.

Also, in the budget we continued to invest in our 10-year $110 billion infrastructure pipeline, and I congratulate the member for Riverina for the strong work that he did in this regard. In our skills programs, there are 163,000 new places in the JobTrainer program and $2.7 billion for 170,000 apprentices—like the sparky, the member for Swan—who are getting support to continue to take the jobs that are available across the economy. Our investment in child care is putting a particular focus on those who've got more than one child in child care. Treasury estimates that nearly 300,000 additional hours a week of work will be created by this particular program.

I'm asked: are there any alternative approaches? We know that those opposite will not only spend more but also tax more. They took to the last election $387 billion of higher taxes. Paul Keating, someone that those opposite like to look up to, said, 'I think that, if you're talking about the Labor Party and why it lost the election, it failed to understand the middle-class economy.' No truer words have ever been said.