Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Can I just say how unfortunate it is that the previous speaker did not hang around to do another five minutes, because we are still waiting to hear what the Labor Party's plan is around housing affordability. In particular, I would love to see the modelling of housing affordability. At what price point do you want people's housing assets to be? The other side are silent, because they know the truth. They know that their only argument is that they want to reduce the asset value of people who own houses. What political party, in today's day and age, honestly goes to the people and says, 'We understand how important housing is to you, and our policy is that the value of your houses drops'? That is the Labor Party policy: drop the value of your assets. What we are yet to hear is exactly to what value they want those assets dropped. So they want to kill the housing industry. They want to penalise those mums and dads who have worked hard and bought a house. They are clearly saying they want the asset value of those properties to drop, but they have not come clean by saying how much they want it dropped.

As for the idea of even mentioning energy prices, I am a Queenslander, and we have about 4½ per cent renewables in our state, and the Labor Party's plan is to increase it to 50 per cent. We have the Queensland state government price-gouging, because we are talking about government owned enterprises in that marketplace. Every day, mums and dads are again being penalised with electricity prices because the Labor Party know they cannot run their finances, so they price-gouge so that they can feed their own coffers.

As for negative gearing, Labor's negative gearing plan only penalises those people who are prepared to take a risk and build their own enterprise. It is counterproductive to a free market economy, but it is absolutely consistent with big government—a big government Labor Party that wants to set not only high renewable energy prices but also the housing prices and that will penalise everyday Australians for wanting to invest and take a risk. That is what the Labor Party has to offer.

I want to say how honoured I feel as a member of the coalition—as a member of a party that understands that it is small business that keeps this economy running. On the Sunshine Coast alone, there are over 37,000 small businesses, and every single one of those businesses will enjoy a tax cut. Not one of them will lose out. And did you know that every single one of them will now, for another 12-month period, have access to the instant asset write-off? They were not going to have that. The Labor Party might oppose these measures for business, but of course the coalition deliver.

Of course, this is not the only thing we are doing for small business. This is the party—this is the government—that has reformed competition policy. This is the party that is extending the GST to low-value imported goods to ensure we have a level playing field. This is the party that is determined, and the government that is determined, to rip out red tape. There is only so much the federal government can do. Yet, what we have seen from this government, and what we have seen from this minister, is a package of $300 million to incentivise states and territories to rip out their red tape, which paves the way for small business to do what they do best and what they do best is create jobs. They create jobs in what is now, thanks to this government, a far more competitive, free market economy, where small businesses not only in metro areas but in the regions have a fair go. It is due to that philosophy of free enterprise and the policies embedded in this budget and thanks to this minister that they will have that benefit.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Employment Portfolio

Proposed expenditure, $2,182,014,000

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