Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

our great political movement is built on seeing the success of our great nation. Our cause is to build the success of this great nation and realise the dreams and the aspirations of millions of Australians. The reason that I will never sit on that side of the chamber, over there with the opposition, is that their aspirations for Australia, as far as they're concerned, will only ever be realised through themselves and their success. What we had at the last election was an opposition who thought that the solution to all the country's ills was to take more power, more control and more of the wealth of the nation for themselves.

At the election, they were full of ideas—$387 billion worth of ideas—and they still hold onto those commitments. They still want to have higher taxes. They're just pretending and keeping it quiet until they get their next chance in 2½ to three years time. They wanted higher income taxes, a retiree tax and, of course, a housing tax. They had ideas on what they were going to do to reorientate industry through unfunded, unmodelled carbon taxes to burden Australian industry and job creation without any understanding of the consequence on the Australian people.

When I went to the election, in the good electorate of Goldstein, and said, 'I am here to represent you and your interests to the nation,' Labor had no plan. Labor's candidate was a nice fellow; I'm not disagreeing with that. But when it came down to whose side he was on, was he on the side of the young women and men who play netball and who wanted the opportunity, through community investment, to build the infrastructure and the facilities they needed? He said he was not prepared to commit to fight for them—that's the tragedy. In a choice between doing the right thing by them and siding with those who sit on the opposition benches, he simply wouldn't stand up and do what was right.

This government came to office making a commitment that we would provide the funding so that the next generation can have their chance at their own success.

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