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

It is not so long ago that the Leader of the Opposition spoke at the Press Club—indeed, last week, just the day before I did—and he said that he was going to be focused on people rather than politics, and what we see is one cheap shot after another. How long did that last? Our policies are very clear, very plain, focused on jobs, investment, economic growth, improving and expanding the opportunities for hardworking Australian families. Everything we are doing is focused on that. We are trying to open up more export markets. We have opened up some big ones. The foreign minister just described the very real practical ways in which those big new markets have provided more opportunities for Australian businesses to get ahead and employ more Australians. And what we are doing is ensuring, or seeking to ensure, that businesses get a tax break so that they will invest more and employ more. And what we are seeking to do is build the infrastructure around the country—$50 billion and more in infrastructure—not to speak of completing the NBN years and years ahead of time from what the Labor Party would have done. So we are getting on with the job, and everything we are doing will generate more investment and more jobs.

What does Labor present? They do not have one single policy—not one—which would encourage one single business to invest one more dollar. They do not have any policies that will encourage employment. Indeed, they want to have higher taxes, more regulations, higher debt, fewer markets and fewer opportunities to get ahead and, to cap all of that, they have policies that are guaranteed to make energy unaffordable and unreliable. I have to say this: the opposition leader is consistent on one thing alone—he is against jobs, he is against investment, he is against the opportunities that Australians today and generations to come deserve and will only come through more investment, more economic growth, bigger markets and wider horizons for Australians to build their businesses and employ more Australians here. That is what we are doing. Labor is standing in the way—every single policy calculated to stop employment, stop investment and stop the growth we need.

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