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

What a pitiful effort from the maestro of marginal tax rates, the professor of ouzo economics. He has had a tough couple of weeks. Today's question time was his moment to shine in the sun, but did he ask one question of the Treasurer about the Intergenerational report? No. He did not ask one question. After a couple of tough weeks he missed his big chance in the sun.

We saw today in the two speeches from the member for McMahon and in question time a pitiful effort. We had B1 and B2: Bill Shorten and Adam Bandt. During question time they were asking questions about climate change, but the report says two particular things about this government's approach to climate change. No. 1, we will meet our Kyoto targets. That is what it says. No. 2, we have an emissions reduction fund which is actually investing in the type of technology to reduce emissions.

What else happened in question time today? The Leader of the Opposition started talking about retirement incomes and the pension. We know that the pension is going up under this government. We know also that the Leader of the Opposition had his own retirement plan for two of his fellow leaders. He was trying to put them into retirement. He had his own retirement plan, and it worked. What else did we hear from the member for McMahon. We heard that education spending is going down under this government. In fact, it is going up, and if you look at the IGR you will see a very clear table that says that education spending is going up from $1,500 per person to $1,900 per person. That is the message in the IGR. The member for McMahon had the gall to raise innovation. Why? Because those opposite actually stifled innovation and start-up companies with their change to the taxation treatment of employee share ownership schemes. It has been left to us to come up with crowdsource funding. But it was the opposition who punished employee share ownership schemes, which meant that it was more difficult for companies in Australia to attract the best and the brightest. Earlier today, the member for McMahon raised the advertising plan that goes with the Intergenerational report. The hide of those opposite! The member for McMahon spent nearly $5 million of taxpayers' money just changing the Centrelink logo. That was his record in government. And who can forget the nearly $70 million that those opposite spent on their carbon tax plan, promoting the carbon tax initiative, including spending nearly $100,000 of taxpayers' money on three fake kitchens for their TV ads?

You raised issues related to measures that will not continue in some areas. I can tell you that they are related to the mining tax, as the Prime Minister told the parliament during question time, because that was the tax that was supposed to produce $50 billion worth of revenue while introducing sovereign risk into our country but produced a little more than $300 million worth of revenue and cost $50 million to implement. Then we had the sight in question time of the member for Lilley being a martyr, refusing to apologise to the chair. Who can forget his immortal words in this place, 'The four budget surpluses that I introduce tonight'? And the message goes on.

This document is a key document produced every five years with the experts in Treasury that sets out 40-year projections. It helps frame the economic narrative of the government and helps inform the economic decisions that we will take. As the Treasurer has said, it is a compact between this generation and the next. What are its key facets? Its key points relate to the three P's: participation, population and productivity. Dealing with population first, it is very clear that we have an ageing boom. Where today there might be 4,000 Australians who are over the age of 100, that will increase to 40,000 by 2055. If you look at the ratio of those under 65 to those over 65, in 1970 it was 7.5, today it is 4.5, and it will fall to just 2.7 in 2055. That is a key demographic change for us to understand.

Then it is about participation. This is the 'grey army' who in increasing numbers are entering our workforce. It is about getting more women into the workforce. It is a $25 billion dividend to the Australian economy if we can lift the rate of female participation in this country to where it is in Canada, which is six points ahead of where we are in Australia today.

What about productivity? In the 1980s, productivity was about 1.3 per cent. In the 1990s, when the country undertook some significant economic reform, it was 2.2 per cent. In the 2000s, it went back to 1.5 per cent, and the projection is for it to be 1.5 per cent in the future—but, if we are going to become wealthier as a nation and our standard of living is to rise, we have to boost productivity. That is why we are cutting red tape; $2 billion worth of red tape reductions is so significant. That is why we are encouraging businesses to invest in materials for their business, to get the best equipment so that they can boost productivity. That is why we are committed to industrial relations reform—and those opposite are trying to block the reintroduction of the Australian Building and Construction Commission. That is why those on this side of the House are committed to the greatest infrastructure spend that Australia has ever seen, with the equivalent of eight Snowy hydro schemes just in the last budget alone. That is our commitment to boosting productivity, because that is our commitment to a higher standard of living.

Referring to the key pages of this document, I draw the attention of the House to page 53, which is the net debt international comparison. You have to understand that, under Labor, we were heading to a record $5.6 trillion worth of debt, or 122 per cent of GDP. Now, under us, as a result of the hard measures that we have taken—the tough, brave measures that we have taken—debt will fall as a percentage of GDP to 57.2 per cent in 2055 and $2.6 trillion. If you want to see this played out in an important graph, it is on page 53. It shows that, under those opposite, if we continued on the trajectory that Labor gave us of spend, spend, spend; tax, tax, tax—the trajectory of the Labor Party—we were nearly going to get to the levels that Greece was at by 2054-55. The member for McMahon knows this all too well, because just the other day, in his description of debt and deficit as being just rhetoric, he actually said—

Mr Bowen interjecting—

Now he is denying it. He said, 'It's okay in Australia because we're not Greece.' But page 53 of this IGR says that we were heading to Greece under your leadership, under your management and under your spending program. When the member for McMahon is on a beach on the corner of the Aegean, flipping through his treatise on ouzo economics and he turns to page 53 of his treatise on ouzo economics, he might just find that chart, which says Australia was heading towards the debt levels of Greece.

I want to finish on a positive note. Under this government, the last budget was the heavy lifting that this country needs and it is setting us on the right trajectory. Now we are starting to see the green shoots in the Australian economy. There are 600 jobs being created every day, three times faster than under Labor. New private dwellings are up to record levels. Consumer confidence is moving up month after month. We are seeing more investment in infrastructure. We are seeing business registrations grow by record numbers. This is the positive story of this government. We have now created stability and certainty in our economy for innovation and entrepreneurship and for individuals to grow and to prosper.

The work is not done. We have the competition policy to respond to. We have David Murray's financial systems inquiry. We have a tax white paper process. We are committed to serious reform in industrial relations. We have the federation white paper. We have the red tape reductions. As the centrepiece of our economic strategy, we have these three free trade agreements, which have set Australia up for decades to come. These are things that the Labor Party were unable to deliver.

When it comes to budget repair, we have shown the ability to get things right. When it comes to those opposite, all they can do is spend, spend, spend; tax, tax, tax—lifting the rate of debt and deficit to levels Australia has never seen before. In the immortal words of Jerry Maguire: 'Show us the money.' Show us the money, because you have no road map for Australia's future.

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