Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Edwards for that very important question. When we came into government we inherited a weakening economy, rising unemployment and a budget position which was rapidly deteriorating. Australia as a trading nation was facing global economic headwinds. Prices for our key commodities were starting to come off their historic peaks in 2012. Instead of making sure that Australia's economy was as resilient as possible, as competitive as possible and as agile and innovative as possible, the previous Labor government put more lead into our saddlebags and locked Australia into unsustainable and unaffordable spending growth into the future.

Since coming into government we have taken some of that Labor lead out of our economy's saddlebags. We got rid of the mining tax and the carbon tax. We reduced red tape costs for business by $2 billion a year. We have reduced taxes for small business, encouraging them to invest in their future success and employ more Australians. We have pursued a very ambitious free trade agenda, helping our exporters get better access to key markets overseas, in China, Korea and Japan, through the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, covering 40 per cent of the world's economy. We have equally pursued and we are pursuing an ambitious infrastructure investment program. Of course, there is more.

Very soon, the Prime Minister and the minister for innovation will be delivering an innovation package, focusing on innovation as the centrepiece of our future economic success. We are pursuing tax reform because we are so committed to ensuring that Australia is in the best possible position to take advantage of future opportunities in the Asia-Pacific, where most of the global economic growth will be generated in the years and decades to come. These are the sorts of things that this government is focused on. These are the sorts of things we are doing to ensure that people across Australia have the best possible opportunity to get ahead.