Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

higher wages and more employment. We managed to secure, despite the ferocious opposition of the Labor Party, cuts to company tax for businesses up to $50 million, with the last group over $25 million, starting on 1 July this year. Small and medium businesses have got tax cuts under our government—overwhelmingly Australian owned, overwhelmingly family owned. And we are seeing the growth in those businesses in the jobs numbers—420,700 jobs in the last 12 months. That's the highest annual jobs growth in our history. There have been 17 consecutive months of jobs growth—the longest run of monthly jobs growth in our history. We see the highest female participation rate in our history. And 78 per cent of those 420,000 jobs are full-time. We saw last month a decline in part-time jobs overwhelmed by a much larger increase in full-time jobs.

Only last week, I was at Bisalloy at Unanderra near Port Kembla, a company making the best steel in the world—who we have been defending, obviously, internationally—and that company told us how they are increasing their employment numbers as their growth continues. They're encouraged by the business tax cuts, and they are re-engaging casual workers as full-time employees. So you're seeing more full-time employment, more employment, higher female participation and the highest jobs growth in our history; that's what our economic policy delivers. We promised jobs and growth, and that's exactly what we're delivering, and the honourable member knows full well that the company tax cuts are a huge part of that, and the arguments for making them are exactly the ones he presented from this dispatch box when he was in government.

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