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

Our plan is very clear. We took it to the last election, and it was endorsed by the Australian people. That plan is anchored, first and foremost, not in the panicked and crisis policies of the Labor Party. If they had the opportunity, if they'd won the last election, they would be now taking a wrecking ball to the Australian economy with their higher taxes and their reckless spending. No, the Australian people chose stability and the certainty of keeping more of what they earn and ensuring that tax cuts would be delivered. That's exactly what we delivered as soon as we got back into this place. Labor resisted it and resisted it and resisted it, and then they folded as usual. They can't even keep their consistency in their opposition to good economic policy.

On top of that, we've invested in infrastructure and we continue to invest in infrastructure. We are investing in programs to cut the costs of doing business in this country by reducing the regulatory burden, whether it's on getting projects up and running or on making sure we can employ more people in small businesses and medium-sized businesses around the country. We're investing in and expanding our trade, we're investing in developing new industries and we're investing in ensuring that we're capturing the opportunity of rebuilding the capability of our defence forces. Those opposite, when they were faced with economic crisis, plundered the national security of our nation, taking defence spending to its lowest level since prior to the Second World War. So not only have we rebuilt the nation's finances but we are rebuilding the nation's defence capability.

We are rebuilding the confidence of Australians, because more Australians, as a proportion of our population, are in work today than at any other time in Australia's history. They voted for an economic plan that they know can prevail in the face of economic adversity. They rejected the higher taxes, the reckless higher spending and the reckless targets in the policies of the Labor Party on emissions reductions, and the jobs emergency that that would create, and they chose a coalition that knows how to manage our economy and our nation's finances.

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