Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am talking about the economy. I am not talking about you and your seat.

I guess Labor has always had a short memory when it comes to the drastic economic leadership failures. We heard the member for Sydney referring earlier to being rolled. I saw a couple of Prime Ministers being rolled by that side. The member for Sydney has a short memory.

We have maintained our commitment to budget repair and demonstrated economic leadership. Should Labor decide to base an argument on fact, if they ever do, rather than the untruths that they have continued to spout since the election campaign for the purpose of misleading the Australian people—just like they did with 'Mediscare'—I will remind those on the other side that in the past year alone almost 220,000 jobs have been created. Our Ten Year Enterprise Tax Plan will give 870,000 incorporated small businesses in Australia a tax cut this year, allowing them the ability to create more jobs.

Not only have we done this; we have also been forced to once again clean up Labor's economic mess. Our abolition of Labor's Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal has allowed 35,000 owner-drivers to stay on the road. The road transport sector employs around 200,000 drivers and contributes $51 billion to the national economy. The RSRT had the potential to be immensely destructive to the economy and financially devastating for everyday Australians. As someone who has a transport hub in their electorate, as I do with Welshpool in Western Australia, which is full of trucking companies, I can say that you would not believe the applause they gave to the coalition government for stopping the RSRT. They thought it was so good that we had gone out and saved their jobs. The RSRT was simply another economic disaster from that side of the chamber that was bad for small business, bad for truck owner-drivers, bad for thousands of Australian families and bad for our nation's economy, but when has public interest, the economy or the livelihoods of everyday Australians ever got in the way of Labor's deals with unions?

In addition to this, our government has secured support for over $6 billion in budget savings through the amended Budget Savings (Omnibus) Bill, which has provided immediate and tangible progress towards restoring our budget. We will arrest our debt and, in doing so, continue to strengthen our economy and our living standards and create opportunities for our future generations.

This government has set out a clear plan for our economy, providing the economic leadership Australia needs. The Australian economy is growing at 3.3 per cent. Our economic growth is faster than that of any of the other G7 economies. Our exports of goods and services from Australia are 9.6 per cent higher than a year ago. Consumer confidence remains above the long-run average, where it has now been for 20 consecutive weeks—the longest stretch since late 2013.

In the great state of Western Australia, iron ore exports from Port Hedland reached a record 42.9 million tonnes for the month of August. Need I remind the other side about the disastrous, anti-Western-Australian mining tax imposed by those on that side, which was no sign of economic leadership. The coalition will continue to provide economic leadership for the Australian economy, for the Australian people in this term of parliament and into the future as well.

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