Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Tangney for his question. He knows, because he was elected on the basis of our national economic plan for jobs and growth that were set out in last year's budget, that our economy, the Australian economy is one of the fastest growing advanced economies in the world today. We have the second-highest GDP per capita of any country in the G20, second only to the United States. Our national economic plan made the decision and made the calls which address the challenges of ensuring that we are improving the wage performance of Australians—lifting their wages, supporting wages growth, increasing investment and securing jobs for hardworking Australians. This is across a raft of areas.

The National Innovation and Science Agenda has delivered new tax incentives for start-up businesses. It has delivered new funding to support the CSIRO to work with companies to take innovations and research into the marketplace. The biomedical translation fund is doing the same thing to commercialise medical research.

We are ramping up the 20-year defence industry plan that is creating new businesses and new jobs right across the defence industry supply chain right across the nation, in stark contrast to the Labor Party that never even built a bath tub boat let alone engage in the important issue of developing our defence industries, particularly our naval shipbuilding plan.

Our $50 billion infrastructure plan is being rolled out across the country including the Monash Freeway in Melbourne, the WestConnex in Sydney, the Bruce Highway in Queensland, the Northern Connector in Adelaide, the Forrestfield-Airport Link in Perth and the Midfield Highway in Tasmania.

Our export trade deals are another critical part of the national economic plan with China, with Japan and with South Korea and they are ensuring new jobs and new markets, particularly in our agricultural sector, which saw one of the most amazing periods of growth in the December quarter of last year and is lifting living standards in rural and regional Australia. During Premier Li's visit, we announced better outcomes for Australian beef and exports to China, which backed up the arrangements we were able to achieve with Indonesia just weeks before.

And we are changing our tax system to boost new investment that creates and supports jobs, that increases real wages starting with tax cuts and incentives for small and medium-sized businesses. And we are delivering on budget repair. Almost $25 billion in budget improvement measures have been delivered since the last election, since the last budget, which are getting on with the job of budget repair. These achievements of implementing the national economic plan for jobs and growth was what was at the heart of last year's budget and will be at the heart of this year's budget.

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