Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, and Minister for Industry and Innovation. How is the government supporting Australian jobs and small businesses by helping working people to get the skills they need? Are there any risks to this, and how is the government addressing them?

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Chisholm for her question. Labor governments represent working families. We manage the economy to look after working families and in particular to create jobs and stimulate economic growth. As a result of the sound economic management of this government, Australia stands out amongst the industrialised world. We have low unemployment, solid growth, moderate inflation, very significant levels of business investment and low public debt.

As the Leader of the Opposition said late last year in London, when perhaps he did not think anyone here was listening:

On the face of this comparative performance, Australia has serious bragging rights. Compared to most developed countries, our economic circumstances are enviable.

One of the rare moments of truth from the Leader of the Opposition.

While our economic performance is enviable, Labor of course also understands the challenges that our economy faces. That is why we are introducing important reforms that will boost productivity, lift workforce skills and improve the competitiveness of the economy. How are we doing it? Labor wants to help companies invest, and one of the important ways of doing that is to cut the company tax rate to 29 per cent. What is the position of those on the other side? They are opposed to it. In fact, they want to increase company tax.

Also, Labor is helping small businesses by increasing the instant asset write-off to $6,500, and $5,000 for the purchase of a motor vehicle. What is the position of the coalition? They are opposed to all of it. They are opposed to assistance for small business.

For small business people who are unincorporated, many will benefit from the trebling of the tax-free threshold, which is part of the Clean Energy Future package. It will treble to $18,000, a move the coalition has opposed—another measure for small business that the coalition opposes.

We are boosting research and development in our economy through an improvement to the R&D tax incentive. They tore down the R&D tax concession when they were in government, reduced its effectiveness. We are improving skills by investing in things like trades training centres in secondary schools, another measure that the coalition opposed. We are doing the NBN, one of the greatest productivity-boosting initiatives in our economy for many decades. They oppose it. Everything constructive on the economy the opposition opposes. The government is working hard to ensure that working families benefit from— (Time expired)