Trevor Evans (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I think it's fair to say that Labor are a bit flat on this MPI topic today, because, probably after preparing their speaking notes, they have had a text from their Queensland colleagues reminding them that they're not really supposed to be talking about Labor's record on the economy right now, except if it's along populist lines. Any conversation this week on the economy, about our future prosperity, should really start with the fact that Queensland Labor has just walked away from Australia's trade agreements, flagging in a very significant way how Labor continue to crab-walk away from any economic plan whatsoever, away from the centre of politics, and how they're creeping towards populism.

We have the current shadow Treasurer moving this motion. He once said:

… Keating knew that the corporate tax rate needed to be cut to make Australia competitive, that capital and investment would flow to tax-competitive nations and that this was an important job-creation move. Today capital is even more mobile than it was then and it is important that our corporate tax rate is more competitive.

But now he leads the Labor Party's attempt to do the exact opposite—to raise small business taxes and to make Australia even less competitive. It used to be a bipartisan position in Australia's parliament that we all aspired to cut Australia's corporate taxes in order to grow our economy. Rudd, Gillard, Rudd again, Latham, Crean, Beazley, Keating and Hawke—the list goes on—all agreed. Even the member for Lilley once promised to cut the corporate tax rate, although admittedly he promised that at the same time as he promised this country four surpluses that never quite eventuated either.

The current Labor Party is walking away from the centre. They're walking away from trade in Queensland. They're walking away from the reforms that bring growth. They're walking away from policies that bring prosperity. And they're walking towards populism, away from the sensible centre of politics, under the leadership of the most left-wing leader that Labor have had in a very long time. You don't need to take my word for that: when the Labor member for Isaacs was asked by a journalist whether he could name a more left-wing Labor leader, he couldn't. Those opposite are crab-walking away from the centre of politics. They're walking towards populism and the sort of class warfare politics that was supposed to be eradicated when the Labor Party reformed itself in the eighties in order to be fit for office again.

This government has an economic plan. This government has cut taxes for small businesses and for middle-income Australians. That's economic leadership. Labor used to support that, but now they want to put taxes up on every single front they can think of. This government is making meaningful reductions to the debt and deficit, and that's economic leadership: cleaning up Labor's economic mess. This government is delivering the plan and the competence in leadership that was sorely missing in our energy market when Labor was in charge, and this government has delivered new trade agreements with the biggest and fastest-growing trading partners Australia has, so that Aussie businesses can sell to new markets overseas, employ more people and spread that prosperity. That's economic leadership. Meanwhile, Labor in Queensland undermines our trade. The Queensland Labor Premier, in The Courier-Mail the other day, even went so far as to say that trade doesn't make sense to her.

The Reserve Bank released its August statement a few weeks ago. Page 1 of the overview says:

The economy is expected to grow at an annual rate of around 3 per cent over the next couple of years, which is a bit higher than estimates … The unemployment rate is accordingly expected to edge lower.

That's the sort of measured and optimistic outlook that you get from an economic plan under a coalition government. In contrast, the Labor Party don't have an economic plan. They have a populist class war. They have the politics of envy. They want to make it harder for Brisbane families to make investments, for Brisbane businesses to create jobs and for a budding entrepreneur in Brisbane to create something exciting and new.

I will go through a brief hit list of how Labor plans to 'lead', showing how it will only hurt Australians in the future and crush opportunities. They want to increase taxes on small businesses and fail to implement this government's vision to bring corporate tax rates down across the board: $65 billion more in Labor taxes on Australian businesses. They want to scrap negative gearing: $32 billion more in taxes on Aussie families trying to invest in their future.

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