David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The budget delivered last night by the Treasurer is a sound economic plan that is going to drive jobs and growth in our economy, and a stronger, bigger economy will deliver the revenue that the nation needs to balance our books. Not only have we the Innovation and Science Agenda, we have the defence industry plan, high-tech manufacturing jobs in defence industries that will spill across into other areas of the economy. We have the continuation of our infrastructure plan. That is a $50 billion spend that was budgeted for in last night's budget. That means the accelerated build of the Pacific Highway will continue, as will the Bruce Highway and other projects all around the country.

The most exciting thing for my part of the world, in Lyne, were the tax announcements. There are over 10,000 small businesses in my electorate. That is not the big end of town. It is not Macquarie Street; it is Main Street. The businesses in Lyne—all of them—are small. We have one or two successful medium sized businesses. To give them a tax cut of another one per cent is such an incentive. It improves their cash flow. The instant asset write-off was extended and the threshold has been raised to $10 million for some of our bigger businesses.

The other exciting thing in the budget last night was the pathway offered for youth unemployed. They get a real job in an internship with a real boss—not a made-up scheme or good deeds in community work. It is real experience. They get on-the-job preparation. They learn the skills they need to get a job and then they spend up to 25 hours a week in a real job. It gives them a chance to perform for their supervising boss. She might like what she sees and she might think: 'This young person deserves a break. I am going to employ them.' And there is bonus wage subsidy as well to encourage the employer to continue. That is really great news. I do not know what people are objecting to. Is the other side upset that 30,000 young people per year for the next four years are going to get that opportunity? You have to be joking. It is a great idea.

There is also over $500 million for road and rail. Look at inland rail. That is going to open opportunities and deliver growth in inland agriculture and produce across Victoria and New South Wales. It will get a whole lot of heavy transport off the east coast rail and road lines. It is going to be brilliant. We committed $630 million towards that.

We are also closing tax loopholes. Everyone complains about multinationals avoiding tax. We have a 1,000-person task force that is going to apply the tax avoidance legislation and a diverted profits tax. There will be a penalty of 40c in the dollar for any money that is deemed to have been transferred overseas through hybrids or other obscure mechanisms.

In my part of the world, the Lyne electorate, we have a lot of hardworking mums and dads, hardworking Australians. They are not the so-called high end of town that the other side are talking about. They are just hardworking families. We are helping them by raising the threshold for the middle tax bracket by $7,000. They should not be on the second highest tax bracket, but bracket creep is forcing too many of them up. Their families are going to be $378 every year better off.

The best predictor of future performance is past performance. Look at the deliveries of budgets by the last Labor Party Treasurer. We had a deficit that they outlined at $18 billion which came in $48 billion. That is a $30 billion blackhole. They do not need a plan; they need to go through a NAPLAN. They need to work on their arithmetic. (Time expired)

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