Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I can understand the frustration of the Leader of the Opposition because this is the first year in three years where he has not been able to stab the back of a Prime Minister! I just want to say to the Leader of the Opposition that if he were as good at policy as he is at scripted one-liners then maybe his party would not have had the worst result in 100 years. I just want to remind the Leader of the Opposition that the worst day in government is better than the best day in opposition.

We in government are making a difference. This is the 70th year of the Liberal Party and it is 75 years since our founder, Robert Menzies, first became Prime Minister. And when he established our party he did so believing in a progressive party, one that believed in the power of the individual, in free enterprise, in helping those who cannot help themselves, in ensuring smaller and more efficient government. And when you look at our record over just the last year, we meet all those criteria, and we excel in them.

If you want to talk about the performance of individual ministers, let me go through some of their achievements, starting with the Treasurer, the Minister for Small Business, and the Minister for Finance, who have led our economic team. They have reduced the overall tax burden for Australians by removing that terrible carbon tax, a $9 billion hit on the Australian economy and a $550 hit on all Australian families. And what about the mining tax? That is removing $50 billion for the budget bottom line. It was supposed to project all this revenue, which never eventuated, but what it did do is introduce the dark spectre of sovereign risk into our country.

And what about the 96 unenacted but announced tax and superannuation measures that those opposite introduced when they were in government, only to bring uncertainty to the budgetary situation of so many of our economies? And what about the 76 bodies we have abolished to ensure that government is now streamlined and more efficient? And what about the successful sale of government enterprises to ensure that government is not both the regulator and the operator? There is no better example than the sale of Medibank Private for $5.7 billion—$1 billion more than was expected. And now we have scoping studies into Australian Hearing, into the assets registry, and into Defence Housing, because we believe that government should not be in business where the private sector can be.

And of course there is the most important job of budget repair: $300 billion of fiscal consolidation over the next decade. Politics, according to Bismarck, is the art of the possible. So we have to negotiate with a difficult Senate from a minority position. But we are doing it successfully, thanks to the good work of our economic team. And what about for small business? As the minister told us during question time, more than 500,000 jobs in small business were lost over the term of the Rudd, Gillard and Rudd governments. We have introduced a whole suite of measures, including more than 400,000 small businesses that will not have to go through the PAYG system. This has ensured that we have had tens of thousands of new small business registrations. And in my own area of deregulation we set ourselves an ambitious target of $1 billion a year for cutting red tape. And what have we done? We have actually surpassed that. We have more than doubled it, with $2.1 billion worth of announced measures to cut red and green tape. And some of them are so important, including for small business, for agriculture and our farmers, and right across the economy. So, it has been a very good year when it comes to our economic measures.

What about the environment? The Minister for the Environment has got his $2.5 billion Direct Action Plan through the Senate. He has got his Green Army proposal through the Senate. We have a good position on the Renewable Energy Target, which we believe should be a 20 per cent target. And of course he has abolished the carbon tax. That is a proud record when it comes to the environment.

And what about health? Those opposite talk about the cuts to health. I will talk about the boost to health: a more than 40 per cent increase in funding over the forward estimates, $5.3 billion extra money for hospitals and health over the forward years. And what about the changes we are adopting to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, through our announcement that processes, systems and products that have been approved overseas can come into Australia if they have been done by a trusted international jurisdiction. That is good news, because it means that medical devices and medicines can now get to market quicker, and we can have more choice for consumers at lower cost. And of course our medical research future fund, which is a great development, plays to our strength, because if we can get medical research right then we can find the cures for the future.

And what about education? There is a 37 per cent increase—a $4.9 billion funding increase over the forward years, when those opposite never would have fully funded Gonski, and we have increased our education funding. And of course there are the important higher education changes, which have been strongly supported right across the tertiary sector.

And what about in infrastructure, where there has been a $50 billion spend?—the Pacific Highway, the Bruce Highway, the WestConnex and, we hope, the East West Link in Victoria. And after 50 years of indecision we now have a second airport on the cards for New South Wales—again, a very important decision. Again, we are making a difference when it comes to infrastructure, not just with the big projects but also the $500 million for black spots and the $2.5 billion for Roads to Recovery.

When it comes to the NBN, over the last year alone more than double the number of businesses and homes actually have access to the NBN. It was over budget and it was slow in the rollout under those opposite. But we have taken that performance and reshaped it with a much better scheme under the leadership of our Minister for Communications.

And what about trade? What about those three free trade agreements which are the hallmark of this government's achievements in just its first year? It took six years for those opposite to diddle and daddle and produce no results. We have an agreement with Korea that will lead to 98 or 99 per cent of our products going into Korea tariff-free over the future years. What about Japan? And of course, what about China? There have been big gains in agriculture, with the abolition of tariffs for beef, dairy and horticulture. And what about in resources, where we are seeing coking coal and thermal coal tariffs come off, and aluminium oxide come off? And what about in services?—70 per cent of the Australian economy but just 17 per cent of our exports. And of course now education, health, insurance and financial services can actually get in to the Chinese economy, where they could not previously. This is a groundbreaking agreement, one we are proud of and one that will create jobs into the future.

And what about on foreign policy? The minister for foreign affairs has done a brilliant job with the new Colombo Plan. Under her initiative, 1,300 undergraduates from Australia are going to experience what life is like in the region. They will be ambassadors for Australia, just like the Colombo Plan more than 50 years ago under Percy Spender was for 40,000 people.

And what about the way we have handled the tough issues of defence and national security? There has been new counter-terrorism legislation, thanks to the good work of the Attorney-General, boosting funding and support for the Defence Forces, given that those opposite reduced Defence spending to the lowest level since 1938 at just 1.49 per cent of GDP—and what a disgrace that was.

Of course, we are there when it counts, trying to defeat ISIL—or ISIS, Daesh, or whatever you are going to call the group—in Iraq and in Syria, with our deployment over there of our air force and our special forces, because Australia will not shirk those challenges when they are critical to security here at home. We have seen the good work of our Federal Police, ASIO and our other intelligence services in trying to foil attempts to hurt Australian citizens here at home.

And who can forget our success when it comes to border protection? Those opposite ridiculed us by saying we could not stop the boats, that you could not turn back the boats and that you could not do so without damaging the relationship with Indonesia. Who remembers the then leader of the government, Kevin Rudd, talking about 'Konfrontasi' with Indonesia if we would actually go down the path of the 'turn back the boats' policy. But we have been successful, thanks to the fantastic work of the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection and his officials. We have succeeded where those have not.

I want to finish with the G20, because that was Australia's moment in the sun, in Brisbane. Eighty-five per cent of the world's GDP here, 75 per cent of the world's trade and two-thirds of the world's population. They saw Australia at its finest. They saw Australia and they produced outcomes—whether it was in infrastructure, growth, tax, shadow banking and a whole series of areas. We have made a difference with G20, thanks to the leadership of the Prime Minister.

I am proud of what we have achieved over the last year. We have succeeded where those have failed, and they will see the result at the election in 2016.

See this speech in context