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

The Leader of the Opposition has been in this place a very long time. The Leader of the Opposition is obsessed with the games that go on in Canberra. He's totally obsessed with them. He's absolutely obsessed with them. He's so focused on what's going on down here in Canberra that what he can't hear, what he fails to hear, is what is going on around the rest of this country and where their focus is. Their focus is on how the economic recovery is going to be secured, and that's what our government is focused on.

Our government is focused on ensuring that electricity prices have been coming down. Our government has been focused on making sure that we've got 217,000 apprentices in trade training, which is the highest level we have seen on record since they were kept in 1963. Our government has been focused on the fact that we now have a million Australians who are working in manufacturing. Under Labor, one in eight manufacturing jobs had gone—absolutely gone. Our government is focusing on ensuring we have reliable and affordable energy, so we're building a gas-fired peaking plant up in Kurri Kurri to ensure that the people of the Hunter Valley can have those jobs, support the heavy industries and keep electricity prices down, and the Labor Party is opposing it.

Our government is focusing on ensuring we're helping Australians get into home ownership. Three hundred and fifty thousand Australians have been able to get into home ownership since I was elected as Prime Minister three years ago on the basis of policies that we've put into this place. Getting Australians into homes. Getting electricity prices down. Getting Australians into jobs. Leading Australia through one of the worst pandemics we've seen in 100 years. One of the highest vaccination rates in the world. One of the strongest economies coming through the pandemic. And, of course, one of the lowest fatality rates.

Then there are the security issues we face in this region, which are going on even as we speak right now in our own region, where Australia has to provide the strength to stand up to those who would seek to coerce us; to stand with our allies and our partners; and to gain access to the defence technology which means we can have nuclear powered submarines, which those opposite would never dare to even ask for, let alone understand why it was necessary, and have been quibbling over ever since, even backing overseas countries as they've attacked Australia's capability to perform on that front. It takes strength to be in this job, a strength that the Leader of the Opposition does not hold and does not understand.

See this speech in context