Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

As the member for Barton does not know, the No. 1 item that the federal government spends money on before we spend a dollar on anything else is the welfare budget. It is the No. 1 largest item of the Commonwealth budget. So to say that this is not a fair society, to say that we don't take account of those who can't do things for themselves and that we don't look after people is completely false. We already have one of the highest rates of personal income tax in the world. The only formula that the member for Jagajaga and the Labor Party put forward to this parliament—the constant refrain—is to increase taxes, increase spending and send out more welfare, and somehow that will lift people out of poverty.

The Turnbull coalition government knows that the economics of opportunity relies on getting people off welfare. It relies on the enterprise of Australians, of our citizens, of our small and medium businesses, of our families and of those corporations that the member for Jagajaga wants to demonise—those Australian corporations started here, founded here, by Australians, for Australians. That's the only pathway for the government and for our society to get people out of welfare and into jobs. It's the only avenue that will work. That's why this government, the Turnbull coalition government, has cut tax—not for the big corporations, as the member for Jagajaga would have you believe, not for the big end of town. We have cut the company tax rate for every single small and medium business, every family run and owned and operated business in Australia. The member for Jagajaga, as she's famous for, would want to claw back that tax from Australian small and medium businesses.

So how would the Labor Party ever get someone off welfare and into a job? We don't need more government jobs, Member for Jagajaga. We already have debt and deficit thanks to the Labor government. We have a debt and deficit that they never help us recover from. How are we going to get people into work? Well, it's by cutting company tax for Australian businesses, for those people that can employ more people. And it is working. You don't have to take my word for it. You don't have to take the word of the government for it. You just have to look at the facts in the real world right now: 245,000 jobs created in a single year—the highest job creation on record since the global financial crisis. The vast majority of those—80 per cent—are full-time jobs. The member for Jagajaga says inequality is rising. Well, inequality is not rising when we create 245,000 jobs in a year, 80 per cent of which are full time, getting those people off welfare.

The member for Jagajaga put forward a list of welfare items that we have cut, saying that she would somehow restore them. Well, that's not what her Labor Party budget policy figures say, by the way. That's not what she said at the election. It's not what the Labor Party said at the election either, as we heard in question time today. So they come in here and say, 'We're going to restore all those cuts,' but in the budget line items of the Labor Party's financial costings they've agreed with us on so many of those costings.

We in this government know from the recent budget update that we are making progress on reducing welfare in this country, and that is good for people—a $5 billion reduction in the welfare bill in Australia. It is still the No. 1 item that we spend money on, but our goal is to get people off welfare and into work. We're committed to doing it.

Every time we propose a genuine policy here to get young people into jobs we're opposed by the Labor Party. Remember when we said that we would say to young people aged 18 to 30—people who don't have a disability, or don't have other issues in their life, excluding virtually half of those young people in the Australian population, but everyone else—we will pay you to study. We will pay you to earn, we'll pay you to get out there and get a job, but we won't pay you welfare. Of course, the Labor Party opposed us on that measure and said we were being cruel and unusual to young people, cruel and unusual to say that you should be in study, you should be in work, or you should be looking for work. These are sensible principles that most Australians would absolutely back us on.

The alternative from the Labor Party to these sorts of policies for getting people out into either training or work is more and more welfare. I ask the member for Jagajaga, I ask the Labor Party here in this MPI debate: how can it be fair? How can it be equitable to condemn people to intergenerational welfare? That is the thing that didn't touch the member for Jagajaga's lips in her presentation. What is happening now when the Labor Party gives up on people, when they don't recognise that the priority of a government must be getting people off welfare and into work? It is condemning generation after generation to real poverty, and real poverty starts with intergenerational welfare. It is something the Labor Party will never acknowledge and never tackle. It is something on which they will never come to this parliament and say, 'We want to get people off welfare and into work.'

The best the member for Jagajaga can come up with is, 'Labor policies will look to get people towards full employment in this country.' How, Member for Jagajaga? If you've never thought about the how, you don't have a plan. This is one thing we know about the Labor Party, and the Leader of the Opposition admits this in his interviews when he is asked, 'What are your policies for job creation?' As the Prime Minister has said, the Leader of the Opposition answers, 'Well, we've got a plan for public transport in Melbourne,'—or something along those lines.

The Labor Party has no plan for jobs or for growth. Instead, they should acknowledge that this government is cutting company tax for Australian companies, Australian businesses—not big businesses and not large multinational corporations. We're taxing them more than you ever did. We are cutting the tax rate for small Australian family businesses, and it is working. More jobs are being created. More full-time jobs are being created. More people are getting work. More people are getting off welfare. Getting off welfare is the best chance for someone to escape poverty in this country. And it's this government that is doing it. But then we hear from the member for Jagajaga that the glass isn't half empty; it's completely empty—it's not as if we have great growth in this economy and the biggest and strongest record of job creation since the global financial crisis. Her only refrain, her only policy that she is prepared to put forward, is putting more welfare on the table. I don't believe that that will get people out of the poverty that she is talking about.

The real people who face the challenges of poverty need to be given every support to get off welfare. They need to be given training, skills and real opportunity. The economics of opportunity is what the Treasurer talks about all the time; it is what this government brings forward. We recognise the need to reduce welfare, to give people the skills and training they need, to give them the opportunity to go and get that job, and to give employers the incentives to employ people. Our Try, Test and Learn policy was opposed by the Labor Party. Why would you oppose any policy that says, 'Let's get young people into jobs, let's get them off welfare, let's assist employers to take them off welfare and put them on a pathway through into jobs'? Let's take those policies and support them in a bipartisan fashion, because there shouldn't be opposition to governments when they say, 'Let's do what we can to get young people off welfare, because we know if we don't get young people off welfare early they have a high chance of staying longer and longer on welfare and higher poverty outcomes in their lives.' It's a vital concern of this government. It's the policy pursuit of this government.

The economics of opportunity are what we are about. We reject this MPI. We reject the Labor Party's approach, because it is the ultimate poverty trap to condemn generation after generation to stay on welfare, with no hope of a job and with no hope of training. And it's the Turnbull coalition government that is growing the economy, putting the incentives in place for Australian businesses—that golden seam of commerce in this country of small and medium family owned businesses—to create the jobs and give young people the opportunity. We're doing the real work for it. It's paying the dividends. It is the largest job-creation year on record since the GFC. We're seeing the dividends. We thank those enterprises for doing it. We know the economics of opportunity and the economics of hope are the way forward for this country.

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