Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is great to be able to talk on this MPI today. I had to laugh when listening to the members for McMahon, Sydney and Macquarie—three Labor members and all they could produce today was negative. It was nothing but negativity!

The member for Macquarie, who has been here for five minutes, said, 'Negative gearing—we want it,' and, 'Their policy would see a change for a generation of young people.' Of course it will see a change for a generation of young people. People in parts of my electorate, where they are doing is tough and where they are paying rent—what will happen to them if you get rid of negative gearing? People will gear positively, and when they gear positively rents will go up. What will that mean for people on welfare and for people on pensions in my electorate and for surrounding electorates? So we do not need a lesson or negative gearing.

The member for McMahon and the member for Sydney talked about superannuation and tax cuts. I will come back to that in a minute, but let's just remember that when Labor left office in 2013 they left Australians with a gross debt of $317 billion and $240 billion in accumulated deficits. And when they voted for that—those on the other side who voted for that—there was no thought for the future. There was no thought of, 'Well, how are we going to repay this later on?'

When you look back to 1996, when the Howard government came in with a $96 billion debt they had to sell Telstra to pay it. They had a growing economy with the mining boom and everything else—surpluses every year. And then these guys racked up so much debt so quickly. There is nothing left to sell—how are they going to repay the debt? How are they going to make sure that future generations—my children and other children—are left without that?

We had a clear economic plan—a national economic plan. In fact, we were the only party that went to the election with a clear national economic plan for stability, jobs and growth. In this week alone, we have seen billions of dollars in savings measures created. The member for Page spoke before about the trade agreements—how the trade agreements have been helping farmers in his electorate, and how they have been able to export more produce. In my electorate of Petrie, local companies like Job Fish have been able to export more spanner crabs. It is a flow-on effect. We know that exports are up.

We have also seen as part of our national economic plan our advanced defence manufacturing plan. We have seen a plan for manufacturing around shipbuilding. Now, for the new members opposite—they may not know, but perhaps the people in the gallery know? Do you know how many ships Labor ordered in their six years of government? How many defence ships they ordered? Member for Corangamite—how many did they order?

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