Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This government has a clear-cut plan to boost the productive capacity of the economy, to go for growth. It is a tripartite plan, the first element of which is that we are a government that intends to live within its means. That entails cutting the waste as we maintain an unblinking focus on delivering a sustainable budget.

With the previous Labor government at the levers, this nation's enviable abundance became a political plaything in the form of pink batts, school halls, free cash, and debt, debt and more debt. Consequently, Labor's legacy is 200,000 more unemployed, gross debt projected to rise to $667 billion—that is, $29,000 for every Australian—and $123 billion in cumulative deficits.

The coalition government shares the concerns of our fellow Australians in regard to this careless, flagrant and all-too-rapid decline. We recognise the imperative of taking stock. We will action the people's mandate to us to clean up Labor's mess. And we will return Australia to its rightful realm of prosperity. While our goal is eminently achievable, not one member of this government is unperceiving of the hard work ahead. Nor have we been anything less than frank with the Australian people on the realities of budget repair. Greater prosperity will ultimately result in a greater ability to pay for government services. But to get there, just like the families and businesses in our electorates, governments have to live within their means.

As the Prime Minister articulated this week, you cannot spend money until you have earned it or created the means to pay it back. This year's budget will direct our course. What we will do across government is be utterly mindful in our spending determinations. Less productive spending will be ruled out and more productive spending counted in. That is why, on one side of the ledger, we will abolish the carbon and mining taxes—because the premise that you can tax a nation into prosperity is devoid of logic. In the plus column, we will build the infrastructure of the 21st century and, where the market is not best placed to do so, consider other economic investment in programs that meet our stringent cost-benefit analyses.

The public sector will be trimmed and new bureaucracies scrapped because, when it comes to government, we believe that less is more. We believe that getting government out of the way allows the real wealth creators—thriving businesses, employing expanding workforces—to free their arms.

This government has a responsibility to ensure that each Australian's tax dollar sows as much value as possible. That is why all new spending in the coalition government's first budget will be fully funded, invariably from savings, and targeted towards growing the economy through the productive engagement of all working Australians. This thrust is the very basis of rebuilding our economy, so that within three years Australia will be on track for a sustainable surplus. Hopefully, well inside 10 years Australia will once again be a country of sustainable surpluses in the order of one per cent of GDP.

The second pillar of our plan is rooted in the understanding that strong communities require a strong economy to support and sustain them; and a firing economy is one with creative, energised and profitable private businesses. We know that entrepreneurial interests, not governments, are the hothouses of new jobs. So we have to make sure we do everything we can to unencumber businesses, to give them the clear air to thrive, to prosper and to employ more people.

We are a government that is unabashedly going for growth in the private sector. That is why we are unshackling it from the strangling effects of the carbon tax. After the previous Labor government's 40 new or increased taxes and more than 21,000 new regulations, we have begun our program to slash unwarranted and excessive regulation by at least $1 billion a year. In my electorate, I am working with local businesses to garner our share of these red-tape reductions.

Already, this government, in its foundational days, has limited most of the almost 100 announced but not enacted Labor government's tax changes, meaning lower taxes, less paperwork and more certainty. In turn, lower taxes and less red tape add up to greater productivity, which spells higher economic growth, more jobs and, ultimately, more prosperity. But there is something even more subtle at play here. In business, where confidence is king, nothing could be more crucial than fostering an environment that is positive and not defeatist, where eyes are raised and shoulders are not weighed down, in an atmosphere which, freed of obstacles and shadows, rekindles entrepreneurial spirit and its by-products of investment and employment.

The third step in our economic plan is cast in the iron-clad knowledge that global trade produces infinite possibilities with respect to raising the prosperity of nations. That is why this Australian government wishes to sign well-negotiated free trade agreements, particularly with our neighbours in the region. An emergent Asian middle class of more than a billion people will want to buy our goods and services and they will want to holiday here. It is important that we are opening ourselves to those markets and cultivating access for our exporters.

When the Australia-Korea Free Trade Agreement comes into force, 84 per cent of Australia's exports by value to Korea will enter duty free, rising to 99.8 per cent on full implementation. The wide-ranging wins for Australian industry, including beef and dairy producers, will be worth more than $5 billion in additional national income between 2015 and 2030 and, beyond those first 15 years of operation, will boost the economy to the tune of $653 million a year.

So there it is— the interlocking economic framework of our future laid out. A government that lives within its means, reaches for growth in the private sector and hitches its wagon to the locomotive of global trade. Yet, for all the macro-surgery required to close the wounds of Labor's fiscal failings, the coalition government has no intention of shirking its responsibilities at the local level. Indeed, at the heart of our principles is restoring authority wherever possible to local communities, and that is another reason why we are investing in critical infrastructure. It is a productivity-increasing measure and often a local safety investment, which, in my electorate, will see opportunities blossom in line with the coalition's $8.5 million Bruce Highway upgrade.

Between the Sunshine Coast and the Longman electorate region of Moreton Bay, the Bruce Highway is the connector for employment, for tourism and for many students at the University of the Sunshine Coast. It also carries a large number of commuters from our region to Brisbane. With $3.3 billion of the coalition's Bruce Highway project to be injected in upgrades from the Pine River through to the Sunshine Coast, we have a long-term strategic plan that will make travel safer and unlock the potential of our area. Fifty million dollars has been earmarked for the planning and design of six lanes between Caboolture and Caloundra. The Bruce Highway improvements coincide with the development program for Caloundra south and Caboolture west—all in all, a huge boon for the growth of our region.

Let me assure the House and the people of Longman that the government will be delivering on my other key election commitments, including the upgrade of the dangerous D'Aguilar Highway, a major transport corridor heading west from Caboolture. In the lead-up to the 2010 federal election, I declared the coalition's resolve to reduce the tragedies occurring on the D'Aguilar Highway, pledging a multimillion-dollar funding commitment. Over the next three years, obviously while we were not in government, I persistently lobbied the then Labor government to prioritise the work, but my calls fell on deaf ears. Labor chose to ignore our region. Meanwhile, the highway's deterioration and inherent dangers only got worse. With the election of a coalition government, the D'Aguilar Highway will at last be made safer and more productive.

Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, the Hon. Jamie Briggs, was quick to come to the Longman electorate in the weeks after the 7 September election. In 2014, I will continue to bring Canberra's decision-makers to our region. The assistant minister confirmed during his visit that a $16 million upgrade of the D'Aguilar Highway would start this year, in an example of how under this coalition government local priorities will be vigorously prosecuted.

Another of my election commitments, a $250,000 grant to help redevelop Caboolture's Shirley Tinney Netball Complex, will be funded from the government's newly established $342 million Community Development Grants Program. I take this opportunity to thank the Prime Minister for coming to the netball courts to announce this great initiative for my local community. Further community development funding of $300,000 has been authorised for Dakabin railway station, after I undertook in the campaign to work with state and local governments to reduce the precinct's parking woes and increase safety. Two Green Army initiatives have been prioritised for Bribie Island—the Woorim Beach restoration and the Buckleys Hole stabilisation and upgrade have been approved—along with a third involving riparian repair at Burpengary Creek.

In addition to all the aforementioned community initiatives, the government are backing local hospital boards in my region and across the nation, taking control away from distant bureaucracies and putting the best part of every taxpayer dollar spent on health to patient care. Similarly, with public schools, we are supporting autonomy and the granting of authority to principals and local boards so that communities are having the biggest say in the running of their own schools.

To those opposite who are lost at sea when it comes to a coherent economic narrative for our nation, may my remarks today serve as a reminder that on this side of the House our bearings are set, our objectives are clear. The Australian government have a comprehensive plan which we have solidly begun, and we will build on it with a calm sense of purpose drawn from experience and expertise. One thing is sure: we will in the end be judged by the Australian electorate not on the words of our vision but on the breadth of our accomplishments. In this, the government are confident, for our plan is a plan of action.

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