Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is nice to be able to speak on this motion—incredible motion as it is with the suggestion of 'the failure of the government to come up with a fair and sustainable plan'. We should go back to the end of 2007, back in the days when there was black ink on the budget papers of this country. Then we move forward six years—the six years that have evaporated in the memory of the Labor Party, with those wonderful projects like the pink batts, the cash for clunkers and the fabulous expenses that they installed in this country, taking net assets and driving them into the red. And yet, when we are here now, it is as if all that never happened.Labortalk about fairness. What about fairness with respect to giving a better future to the children of this country? As a parent I want—indeed, as do, I am sure, all members in this chamber who are parents—my kids to have a better life than I have. I have a better life than my parents had. They had a better life than their parents had and, so far, this country just keeps on moving forward. That is why everyone wants to come here and it is why people really see it as a country in the world that they would like to come to.

But as the member for Longman put so well, far better than I ever could, what we are now facing is handing on to future generations, whether they are up there in the galleries or anywhere around this country, debt levels that they have never seen before. That debt gets paid for by either higher taxes or a reduction in services. There is only one side trying to do something about that, trying to build the productive capacity.

The other side of politics, the Labor Party, have taken the easy road. They can just go back and say to every group around the country: 'You don't have to do anything; you don't have to bear the burden.' They do not mention who imposed the burden, which was them. They do not mention who imposed the debt, who drove it down with bad policies and big expectations. No, they do not mention that part. They basically are leaving all this debt for future generations to cop. I do not call that fair at all.

However, here on this side we are talking about a productive capacity increase. We are talking about benefits for small business—the multipliers, the job creators of this country—to move beyond the mining boom and those sorts of things, so we can actually create something bigger. What people need most in their life is a job, a support mechanism for their families. The future that the other side want seems to be nothing but welfare and self-interest and we are moving beyond that. We are saying to people: 'It's about jobs, it's about the opportunity to improve your country and things for your family. Through our small business package and our support for child care around this country, to enable people to move into work, these are the benefits that will actually happen and are the things that will build productive capacity all around the country.'

See this speech in context