Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question and note that he is a fearsome advocate for good economic policy; he certainly is. The fact is we are doing everything we can to deliver policies that build a stronger economy and create more jobs, and that helps to build the prosperity of the nation. That is one of the reasons why, under us—the coalition government—this year, job creation in Australia has been running at roughly six times the speed that it was last year under the former minister for workplace relations and now Leader of the Opposition. He was there with 5,000 jobs a month; we are running nearly 30,000 new jobs a month in Australia. That is ultimately going to be an indicator of how strong the economy is.

The fact is, when you have a strong budget you have choices. You have to be able to build a strong economy to help build a stronger budget, to give yourself more choice to grow the economy again. Fundamentally we are about reducing overall government expenditure, so that Australia lives within its means, and delivering integrity in the taxation system. Of course, 'Labor and tax' is synonymous with failure. Why? Because every time the Labor Party touched the taxation system, it screwed up; it screwed up monumentally. Exhibit A: the mining tax, of which the member for Lilley is so proud. He was so proud of the mining tax he was on Q&A, I am told, last night saying it was a terrific tax; all we needed to do was to increase the amount of goods we sold and then we would have had rivers of gold.

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