David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Treasurer, Senator Cormann. Can the minister explain why the government's economic reform agenda is so important to the nation?

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

I thank Senator Fawcett for that question. As I indicated to the Senate yesterday, our economy is in transition. We continue to grow but we need to generate stronger growth and create more jobs to help us afford, as a nation, the important services provided by government. So why is our economic reform agenda so important? It is important to put Australia on the strongest possible economic and fiscal foundation for the future. It will help ensure that people right across Australia have the best possible opportunity to get ahead, in particular, young people across Australia. It will help to ensure that we are as resilient as possible in the face of inevitable global economic headwinds coming our way from time to time. And it will help us ensure that as a nation we are in the best possible position to take advantage of the many exciting opportunities coming our way in this part of the world.

As the Prime Minister often says, this is the most exciting time to be an Australian. To achieve this we need to ensure we are as competitive, as productive, as innovative, as agile and as nimble as possible. That is why we continue our work to take unnecessary costs out of the economy through our ambitious deregulation agenda. That is why we continue to look for opportunities to make our tax system more growth friendly, building on the abolition of the mining tax and the carbon tax and building on the small business tax cuts we delivered in last year's budget. That is why we continue to work to help our exporting businesses get better access to key markets in our region through free trade agreements with China, South Korea and Japan. That is why it is so important that the legislation to bring back the Australian Building and Construction Commission is passed by the Senate as quickly as possible—in order to boost productivity in the construction sector, in order to bring down costs in the construction sector and to help strengthen growth and create more jobs. (Time expired)

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Can the minister also explain why it is so important to the nation that the government gets the budget back into balance as soon as possible?

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On my left!

Opposition senators interjecting—

Order on my left.

Government senators interjecting—

On my right as well. Order! You are holding up question time.

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

As a country we are still working to digest Labor's last serial spending binges in government and of course we are working to get the budget back on track, back into balance, as soon as possible, but not with any help from the Labor Party. The Parliamentary Budget Office report released today shows the cost of Labor standing in the way of us fixing the problems that they left behind. Lower spending helps to reduce the tax burden on hardworking Australians. Reducing the tax burden on hardworking Australians provides an incentive for people to work more, save more and invest more. That helps to strengthen growth and to create more jobs, and of course the stronger growth over time will help deliver stronger revenue flows for government, which will help ensure that as a nation we can afford the very important services provided by government from— (Time expired)

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Is the minister aware of any alternative approaches?

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

Labor's approach in government under the Rudd and Gillard governments and again now in opposition under Mr Shorten is to spend too much. That is then followed by borrowing too much and that is then followed by playing catch up with higher and higher tax grabs on what Labor think are easy targets across the community. That is how Labor does it. Of course in the last term of the Labor government they put more and more burdens in our economy, making our economy less competitive internationally at the worst possible time.

Right now under Labor the budget would be about $50 billion worse off. On the weekend there was Mr Burke complaining about the fact that we pointed out that under Labor the budget would be $50 billion worse off. He said, 'They have added in everything that we have ever complained about.' So I say to Labor: tell us where you really did not mean it when you complained about our savings. You tell us where you are not going to restore spending when you complained about our sensible savings measures. (Time expired)