Nicolle Flint (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is no coincidence that these figures bear a great degree of correlation. Some 240,000 jobs were created over the past financial year, and job advertisements are up by over 13 per cent. The latest jobs data reveals that 210,800 full-time jobs have been created in the past six months alone. This is the strongest full-time jobs growth since records began 40 years ago. It's a very impressive outcome, isn't it, Minister?

Mr McCormack interjecting—

Full-time employment growth is outperforming part-time growth, which is very positive news. In total, over 736,000 jobs have been created since the coalition government came to office, and over 80 per cent of these have been full-time. Add to this the fact that wages paid to employees rose by 1.2 per cent in the June quarter, retail trade rose 1.2 per cent and manufacturing output is at the highest level in 15 years and we can see how our coalition government policies are enhancing and accelerating our nation's economic recovery. Without a doubt, we can say that these achievements are a credit to and the result of strong Liberal Party and National Party government of the nation.

The national accounts data released last week reinforce the trend we've seen picking up under the coalition. Real growth in the economy was 0.8 per cent in the June quarter, more than double the 0.3 per cent in the March quarter. Based on these figures and other indications, the government will likely achieve a better than budgeted final year outcome for the underlying cash balance for the previous financial year. The largest contributor to growth in the last financial year was household consumption, which increased by 0.7 per cent in the previous quarter to be 2.6 per cent higher than a year ago. The government's investments in productive infrastructure are also creating solid growth, with new public final demand rising by 2.1 per cent, driven by an 8.6 per cent boost in government investment. Our $75 billion infrastructure investment will be used to build roads, railways, water infrastructure and other strategic projects, one of which is the grade separation of the rail line near Westfield Marion, in my electorate of Boothby, a problem that has been in existence for some 40 years. I am really pleased to have been able to deliver that for my local community.

Our defence industry plan is delivering for the economy, particularly in my home state of South Australia. Defence investment was up 26.3 per cent in the last quarter thanks to my government's prioritisation of the defence industry and national security.

When we take into account that this is only the beginning of implementing our National Economic Plan, that's when we can begin to realise and understand the sheer volume of untapped economic potential that my government is unlocking. But while the government unlock the economics of opportunity in Australia, our achievements are placed at risk by those opposite, who want to tax Australians into oblivion once again. While under the coalition all Australians are sharing in the benefits of this economic growth, those opposite, the Labor Party, would levy $150 billion of new taxes on Australians, with families and small businesses to bear the brunt of this tax pain. Under their tax plan, no Australian is safe. Everyone is in the sights of Labor's unprecedented tax grab—families, singles, retirees and, in particular, small businesses, which are the economic engine room of the nation. Under Labor's tax plan no Australian is safe; they really aren't.

The grim reality of a Labor government will be tax upon tax upon tax to pay for their insatiable appetite to spend the money of hardworking Australians. They are going after workers, savers, home owners, professionals and the small business owners of Australia. Let's have a look at few of Labor's policies. Their permanently higher top marginal tax rate will take about half of every dollar earned above an income level that is now just over twice the average weekly earnings—a wage which many middle-income-earning Australians aspire to. They have proposed a negative gearing tax grab on wage earners in middle Australia again. For example, a nurse on a wage of $50,000 a year who invests in property with $7,000 in annual net rental losses would under Labor face a whopping tax increase of 41 per cent. They have launched an attack on self-funded retirees with their planned ban on limited recourse borrowing arrangements. They have proposed to introduce a tax policy on trusts, which, again, is an attack on small businesses. The policy singles out as Labor enemies stay-at-home mums, students, doctors and accountants, hitting beneficiaries on $37,000 a year the hardest.

Labor would scrap and reverse our Enterprise Tax Plan, increasing taxes on the 3.2 million Australian small businesses that employ 6.5 million Australians. It is a lot of employees that these small businesses are responsible for, and most of them are, by definition, low or middle-income earners that the small businesses are supporting.

I'm interested to know whether those opposite really think that the politics of envy is going to propel them into government. While they stoke division and resentment in the Australian community they are doing our nation a disservice. There was a reason for the historic failure of socialism. When you're in government, if you pursue equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity, the people suffer. The people in our community who are best able to contribute to our success as a nation will either lose their incentive to work hard to be successful or they'll leave Australia altogether to go overseas to work hard and be successful. We don't want a nation that's encouraged to be mediocre and to stagnate.

Labor's policies will ultimately make it much harder for Australians to get ahead, but, you know, we're quite used to that from those opposite, unfortunately. It's been disappointing to see those opposite step back from their previous positions, where they did support cutting tax rates and encouraging our businesses to grow so that they were productive and employing as many Australians as possible. But, as we know, the Australian people are much smarter than those opposite give them credit for, which, I think, is why we see them not gaining much traction, particularly in this area.

The Australian people know which party they can trust with the economy. They know that the Liberal Party and the Nationals, the coalition government, will not keep dipping into their incomes and their savings. We're here to support hardworking Australians, our small and medium businesses, our bigger businesses and the thousands and millions of Australians that they employ. Our government is committed to growing the economy and helping fund the services that Australians rely on now and into the future. I'm pleased to commend the government's bill to the House.

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