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

When you get rid of Labor's taxes, even when you get rid of the Labor Party, you see more jobs created in Australia. And that is on the back of the $50 billion infrastructure program and it is on the back of abolishing 80,000 pages of red tape regulation that we inherited from Labor. Now Labor is opposing more free trade. Labor is opposing the opportunity for Australia to benefit from an improvement in the trade relationship with China.

Each year we have a $150 billion trade relationship with China—$100 billion in Australia's favour and $50 billion in China's favour. Our trading relationship with China is to our benefit at a two to one ratio. What that means is that anything we can do to grow the relationship with China means more jobs with better pay for everyday Australians, because every dollar of trade with China works in our favour at a rate of two to one. Now the Labor Party and the CFMEU are playing games with that relationship.

China's growth this year accounts for 30 per cent of the world economy's growth. Thirty per cent of the world economy's growth comes from China. As it moves from an investment focus to a consumption focus, the job opportunities as a result of the free trade agreement are going to be rich for every single Australian.

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