James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Nothing gives me a better feeling about the likely outcome of the next election than when the Labor Party want to talk about the economy and economic management. I have to say one of the great honours as a member of parliament was that my first vote in this chamber was to cut income taxes for working Australians, because I'm from a party that fundamentally understands that the Australian people are much better at spending their money than the government is and the more dollars we can put back in the pockets of Australian businesses and Australian families the better. The Labor Party had a completely different approach. It was absolutely rejected at the May election, and I'm very proud to be a part of a government that is reducing costs on businesses and families so that they can spend their money growing our economy.

We of course have a very solid economic plan for this country. It involves cutting taxes. It involves investing in infrastructure. It involves investing in skills and investing in understanding what the future industries are, growing our exports so that the economic pie increases particularly in the private sector of our economy, because that's where the jobs can be created that are sustainable and that will underpin our economic prosperity into the future. We're spending $100 billion on infrastructure over the next 10 years. That's productive infrastructure that is going to contribute to economic growth not just through the mere fact of spending the money and the jobs that that creates but also through the fact that it increases the productivity of our country and our economy.

In my own electorate, happily, we're spending almost $200 million of that money over the next four years alone. That is going to provide major productivity upgrades in my electorate of Sturt. The Portrush Road-Magill Road intersection and the Glen Osmond Road-Cross Road intersection are going to get families and workers to their jobs and, more importantly, homes quicker and safer. They are quality-of-life improvements but also productivity improvements. Every minute less spent in the car on the way to work is a productivity gain for our economy.

We're also, of course, undertaking a spectacular investment in Defence in my home state of South Australia. Obviously, the defence of our nation is fundamentally important, but we're also ensuring that we have a defence industry and that we're producing the assets, the capability and the sustainability that our Defence Force needs here in this country. We are spending that money—$90 billion just in the two shipbuilding programs in South Australia for frigates and submarines. That is $90 billion being spent in the Australian economy to build frigates and submarines for our Navy and to create jobs—high-quality, high-technology, future industrial jobs underpinning the industrial capability of the South Australian economy.

Also very important, particularly given the economic results today around our current account surplus—you weren't able to say in this country in my lifetime until very recently that we have a current account surplus, which is underpinned by a massive trade surplus since, thanks to this government's policies on free trade agreements and backing our exporters, we are exporting more than we're importing. We have free trade agreements with 70 per cent of the markets that we trade with. That's providing enormous opportunity and growth for export businesses. John Key, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, had a great saying: 'We're not going to get rich selling lattes to each other.' We've got to produce things and sell them to other economies—not just goods but services as well. In my home state, like the whole country, international student numbers are growing rapidly.

We've got free trade agreements that are facilitating the increase in exports of major commodities, particularly out of my state of South Australia, like wine and beef and grain. These are sectors that have been around for a long time. Then we've got emerging sectors like the Space Agency that's being developed in my home state, which will have jobs that don't exist right now. That will be there in the future. We're going to have exponential growth in the space sector which will provide so much productivity gain for our economy.

The Morrison government has a very proud policy agenda: to continue to grow our economy well into the future. The alternative is dramatically increasing taxes on Australian businesses and families. That's no way to grow an economy. That will do the absolute opposite. We've had 28 years of economic growth in this country. You've got to go back to the 17th century—the Netherlands, I think it was, and the tulip boom—to find any— (Time expired)

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