Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Gallagher is just the gift that keeps on giving. I had to check whether it was Christmas coming early when I saw the subject of today's discussion—'The very, very mediocre performance of the Turnbull Government'. Well, you have to compare mediocrity with something. So what is the only thing we can compare this statement of Senator Gallagher's with? Of course, it is the last six years of the Labor government. Time does not permit me to say much, as I have only nine minutes, not 90 minutes.

I am going to start with defence, because it was the previous coalition Prime Minister Mr Howard who famously said, 'We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances under which they arrive.' Let me first start with Labor in government. I will tell the people here in the gallery today what Labor did when they were in government relating to defence. The first major thing they did was to rip $18 billion out of the defence budget. That is not a bad effort! The second thing they did was to create what was called a valley of death. The valley of death related to the fact that when it came to naval shipbuilding they made no plans. They made no plans at all. When we came into government we saw that circumstance that needed reversing. The Labor government of the time managed to get defence expenditure down to levels equivalent to 1938. For those up in the students' gallery, that was just before the Second World War. When it came to submarines, there were two of the six Collins class submarines operational at that time, with no plans to replace them.

Let's have a look at what the Abbott and then Turnbull governments have done on future submarines. There are 12 submarines to be constructed here in Australia. There is the future frigates program. Again, it is principally to be in South Australia, with maintenance probably in WA. Then there are the future offshore patrol vessels and the future Pacific vessels that are already being built at Henderson. There is work being done for the land army. There are the new helicopters and the C17 aircraft for the RAAF. Importantly, there is a commitment of up to two per cent of GDP right out to 30 or 40 years in the future. These vessels will be Australian built and Australian maintained. And the members of the Defence Force themselves, both those in uniform and those supporting them, know that they have long-term employment.

I had the privilege of farewelling the HMAS Arunta from Garden Island from HMAS Stirling the other day and made the point to those 191 personnel that many of them are going to be the leaders of the Navy into the future simply because the coalition showing the leadership we are showing in the defence space will ensure that there is a defence budget well into the future. There is a white paper on defence, accompanied by a defence industry paper so that industry knows where it is in that particular space.

Associated with protection of borders and long-term security, we obviously have the question of detention. The previous speaker spoke of unpicking a policy. She was not around when the incoming Rudd government unpicked what was a very successful policy of the then Howard government when it came to asylum seekers. There were none. There were none coming to our shores at that time. There were none dying at sea. There were none in detention. Therefore, there were no children in detention.

What did we inherit when we came back into government in 2013 because the Rudd-followed-by-Gillard government decided to unpick a policy that worked? Fifty thousand people arrived by sea in 800 successful smuggling events. No wonder the people smugglers at the time thought the Rudd and Gillard governments were the bee's knees. Eight thousand children were in detention. When we came into government, there were almost 2,000. Today how many children are there in detention? None. Zero. We know about 1,200 people who died at sea. That is one every two days of the last Labor government. We know about 1,200 because, regrettably, they are the ones who were found. When I spoke to the skippers of patrol vessels and asked them, 'How many were there?', they said, 'Senator, we have absolutely no idea.'

This apparently mediocre Turnbull government has now gone through 840 days in which there has not been a successful entry by people by sea. So the people smugglers' trade has been closed down. The biggest risk to that would be a future Labor government. That is the situation associated with defence and asylum seekers.

I turn then to the apparent mediocrity of the performance of the Turnbull government as it relates to free trade agreements. Those of you who are interested know we are a big exporting country. From our state, Senator Reynolds and I know 95 per cent of our grain is exported. The vast majority of our beef and sheep meats are exported. How many free trade agreements were negotiated during the six years of the Labor government? None. Zero. How many have been negotiated by the Abbott-Turnbull government to date? There has been one with China. China is not a bad little organisation—we only do about $100 billion worth of trade with China!

Even New Zealand was able to strike a free trade agreement during the term of the Labor government. We could not, but we have now. South Korea is a major trader with us—$21 billion dollars of trade. With Japan, it is $50 billion of trade, and we now have a free trade agreement with Japan. Most importantly, because of the excellence of the then minister, Andrew Robb, we enjoy most-favoured-nation status with each of them.

So, when it comes to the apparent mediocrity of the coalition government, all I can say to you is to look at the benefits flowing to Australia now and into the future. I spoke earlier today about the opportunities that exist in Mexico in terms of hard-rock mining, agriculture, oil and gas, services and higher education—and on it goes. Those are the opportunities that are presenting now.

The sorts of jobs that the young people who are up in the gallery now are going to have into the future will be high-paying jobs, because the main benefit of the free trade agreement with China, for example, is in the services sector. As you know, Mr Acting Deputy President Whish-Wilson, from your background in finance, about 70 per cent of the Australian economy relates to services, but only 17 per cent of our exports are services. Imagine if we could double the proportion of our services in higher education, health, education, corporate governance and prudential banking. All of these are services the Chinese want. The young people looking down at us here today, Mr Acting Deputy President, are the people who are going to capitalise on that because of the excellence of the coalition government, led by Mr Turnbull. Just one small example is 3D printing. Through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, I say to you young people up there: whatever you do, get into 3D printing, because the jobs are limitless—and the support from the Turnbull governments in the field of innovation is obviously where that is going to go.

We have these free trade agreements, and of course there are opportunities now with the EU in agricultural exports. Once again, with Britain leaving the EU, opportunities are opening up already, and I am meeting with our trade minister, Mr Ciobo, to make sure that we are aware of all those opportunities.

A space that is of critical importance to us all is employment. Apparently we are mediocre in government; what was the performance of the last Labor government in its six years? In the period from September 2012 to September 2013, a lousy 87,000 jobs in total, or 7,300 jobs per month, were created. What we have been able to achieve is a figure of some 500,000 jobs that have been created in this country since we came to government in 2013. If that is mediocrity, I will wear it any time. If you want to see excellence, have a look at the performance of the last Labor government!