Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

We are very proud of our strong economic plan, which is laid out in this particular document in the 2016-17 budget papers. While members opposite have held up a blank piece of paper, I would like to refer to them to this document. Let's have a look at the important principles of our economic plan. It is a plan for jobs, for jobs growth and for building a stronger economy; for backing work with investment with lower taxes; for growing small business; for investing in the ideas boom; greater choices for consumers; embracing our new financial economy; transforming the defence manufacturing industry; building a navy for the future; building a stronger, new and more diversified economy; investing in infrastructure; growing Australian exports; supporting our rural and regional industries; cutting red tape and creating a new pathway to youth employment. They are all in this document. Clearly those opposite have not quite managed to get their hands on it.

We are very proud of the many ways in which we are working to grow the economy with our strong economic plan, which is delivering record economic growth and low unemployment. One of the very important platforms of our plan is lower taxes for middle-income earners and also incredibly important tax cuts for small and medium businesses. These were tax cuts that were previously supported by the Leader of the Opposition, and in another unprincipled backflip the Leader of the Opposition is now fighting against those small business tax cuts, which is very disappointing.

We have delivered a fairer and more sustainable superannuation system. we are investing record dollars in health and education and we are investing in regional communications infrastructure—an issue that has been blatantly ignored by members opposite. We are doing wonderful work under our mobile communications—fixing blackspots right across Australia. We know how important that is for rural and regional's families, for students and for businesses. What but of course whenever we hear from members opposite, our farmers and rural and regional industries barely ever get a mention.

We now in the House have passed our Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2014. Yesterday in the House our Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill 2013 because we know how important it is to drive productivity to boost growth and to care for the one million workers who work on Australian building and construction sites.

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