Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I remind the Prime Minister of the warning from the Business Council of Australia, and I quote:

Our costs are too high, productivity is too low, we haven't invested enough in infrastructure and we're drowning in costly, time consuming regulation.

Will the Prime Minister explain—

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Ms Anna Burke (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Member for North Sydney will resume his seat. The Minister for Health is warned. The Member for North Sydney will commence his question again.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I remind the Prime Minister of the warning from the Business Council of Australia that:

Our costs are too high, productivity is too low, we haven't invested enough in infrastructure and we're drowning in costly, time consuming regulation.

Will the Prime Minister explain how Labor's 39 new or increased taxes and 21,000 new regulations have made it easier for businesses to secure jobs for working Australians?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the shadow Treasurer for his question and I am very happy to go through it. On the question of tax, on this side of the parliamentary we stand for lower company taxation than those on that side of the parliament—ask the BCA for a critique of the Leader of the Opposition's plan to jack up company taxes. On regulation, we have worked hard to create a seamless national economy to reduce the burden of regulation for Australian businesses. We have had many successes, but of course there have been times when state Liberal governments, presumably at the political direction of the opposition, have refused to endorse that deregulation agenda because they would prefer to play the politics.

Then on productivity, I refer the shadow Treasurer to the facts. I know that the facts and the opposition just do not go together—they are like oil and water; they can never mix. The shadow Treasurer can never focus on a fact—he has caught that from the Leader of the Opposition. But the facts are: productivity has been increasing—I refer him to the figures in recent quarters—and that is very important. Of course, what I have been speaking about in the parliament today—our agenda for human capital, our agenda for school improvement—is absolutely about the future productivity of our nation, as are our record investments in apprenticeships and traineeships, our record investments in universities in research and the training of undergraduates, our record investments in innovation. These are all about increasing productivity for the future.

Then the shadow Treasurer asked about infrastructure. The shadow Treasurer might want to sit at a desk quietly for an hour and have a look at this government's infrastructure improvement record, compared with the record of the government of which he was a cabinet member. He might want to do that, because this government has invested in infrastructure at record rates. We actually believe in productivity improvements through infrastructure—things like the National Broadband Network, bringing fibre to the premises; things like major public transport initiatives in our big cities, so people can get to work more easily. All of this is productivity-enhancing.

Then the shadow Treasurer referred to costs of doing business. Let me assure the shadow Treasurer—I presume in his mouth that is code for cutting wages and conditions; after all, he was Mr Work Choices—that on this side of the parliament, we will never do that. We do not believe that our future lies in a low road of cutting wages. We believe it lies in a high road of increasing productivity, and that is what we are investing to do. No amount of giggling by the shadow Treasurer changes those facts. (Time expired.)