David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

We stand in the House today in an environment where we have just seen a year of the greatest job creation in Australian history—the biggest year ever for the creation of Australian jobs. In this House all of us should be praising the efforts of industry, the efforts of government and the efforts of everyone who has contributed to this extraordinary result. What we have seen in the past 12 months is that every single day, on average, more than 1,000 new jobs were created, and three-quarters of them are full-time. This is a phenomenal outcome, and it's something of which this government is justifiably proud, because those opposite had a very poor record on job creation when they were in office.

We are creating jobs at a rampant speed. Part of the reason that's occurring is this government's very strong policies in relation to economic growth. Among them, most importantly, is business tax reductions. It's already happening, no thanks to those opposite. What happened last year, you'll recall, is that the government said, 'Let's reduce company tax rates for businesses with a turnover of between $2 million and $50 million.' You know what those opposite said? They said no. They said those businesses were too large. They described them as multinationals and as businesses that were undeserving of any tax support. It's very important that people understand the impact that these tax cuts are already having, because we already have a situation where there are literally millions of businesses in Australia with between $2 million and $25 million of turnover that have had—

See this speech in context