Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. I will take him up on the opportunity to remind him yet again of what we have done in the past year.

Every element of our economic agenda is designed to ensure that we continue the successful transition, so far, from a mining construction boom, a massive terms-of-trade boost and a massive increase in mining investment—it got up to eight per cent, now halved. We have seen a big lift-up in mining construction investment and then a decline, and that was always going to happen. Economists around the world predicted that we would have a hard landing. Most countries do. It was almost inevitable that you would have a hard landing. But we did not, and we have not, and the reason is that we had clear economic leadership from the government and we have hardworking, agile, creative Australian businesses—people who are prepared to act and invest and get on with the job.

Our economic future can only be maintained by securing a commitment to open markets and free trade. Protectionism, as I said earlier today, is not a ladder to get us out of a low-growth trap; it is a shovel to dig us deeper. What we heard from the Leader of the Opposition earlier today was a classic cry of populist protectionism: raging against the modern world, full of grievances, no solutions—completely at odds, I might say, with the shadow Treasurer's speech to the Crescent Institute last week. They seem to be moving further apart. They are as far apart on the economy as they are on the banking royal commission.

Consider this, Mr Speaker: we inherited a colossal corporate failure in the NBN, probably the biggest corporate failure in Australia's history. In six years, the Labor Party managed to connect 50,000 premises—50,000 premises to the NBN in six years. In the last four weeks, the NBN, under new management—new board, new plan—which I set up as communications minister, connected 95,000 premises: nearly twice as many in four weeks as Labor did in six years.

The reality is: we are seeing strong growth in the economy—3.3 per cent—and strong growth in jobs. By any measure, all of our policies are pulling in the direction of ensuring we maintain the successful transition, and, when it comes to the big projects, Labor fails, Labor messes them up; we sort them out and get on with the job. (Time expired)

See this speech in context