Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Lindsay is right: it is a time of increasing complexity and there are challenging times for Australia. That's why, when we sat down and prepared this year's budget, we prepared the budget to address these circumstances. It was a budget that came together to do a series of things but, most importantly, to provide the certainty and stability in economic leadership that Australians needed. Australians agreed. Australians endorsed that plan. They endorsed the re-election of the government and they rejected yet another Labor experiment of tax and spend. Instead, they chose a government that was delivering a budget surplus—a financial management record which will enable this government to pay down debt. Fifty billion dollars in net debt will be paid off over the next four years from its height in 2018-19. That is paying down debt. When we came to government, gross debt was growing at 30 per cent per year under the policies of the Labor Party. We wrangled that in, and we are now paying down debt as a government.

The Australian people voted for lower taxes. They voted for keeping more of what they earned and they backed our plan to do that. The Labor Party wanted to put more taxes and higher taxes on the Australian economy. Chairman Swanny is telling them to stick to their high-taxing, high-spending approach. The only realm of consistency you can find in the Labor Party at the moment is that they want to tax a lot and spend a lot. They are the policies of the Labor Party.

We increased infrastructure spending by around $25 billion in the last budget. That includes the funding that we're putting into the growth of Western Sydney infrastructure—in particular, the development of the Western Sydney International (Nancy-Bird Walton) Airport, which I know is providing a jobs boom for Western Sydney. The member for Lindsay is very aware of that.

We are investing in skills, expanding our export markets, backing all of our industries, including our resource industries, while the resource industry members of the Labor Party walked away every day from their resource industries in their own seats.

The Australian people voted for sensible emissions reduction policies that can be met by this government and are being met by this government. They voted for the stability of keeping Australians safe and keeping our borders secure, as opposed to the flips and flops, the chaos and uncertainty which Labor continues to present to this day.

As a result of our budget management, bulk-billing is now at a record level under this government. Funding for the PBS, funding for hospitals, funding for schools are all guaranteed by strong economic management and the stability and certainty of my government.

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