Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Following on from that very negative contribution, I say there is great bipartisanship on issues like dementia. However, it is timely for me to talk about the achievements of the government one year in. If the member reflected on the negativity that he brought here, he would be better off to look at some of the balance of what has been going on in the last year since the election of the coalition government. I would point my electorate and the Australian community to many great achievements, including the removal of some of the worst taxes and regulations that we have seen in a generation. The mining tax was repealed this week, which is very good for Australia and it is a great commitment of the government. It really threatened sovereign investment in Australia without delivering any revenue for the government. The carbon tax is gone and what that means is that electricity and gas bills now arriving will show the benefit of getting rid of the carbon tax, and there is relief from electricity and gas prices for small businesses in particular but also families, backed by ACCC vigilance to ensure the benefits are being passed on. That will be a very good thing. We have seen that the ACCC will take to task any company that does not pass the carbon tax back to the Australian community.

In one year we have seen the smashing of the people-smugglers business model. That has been one of the most important achievements of the government, because billions of dollars was being pumped into the proceeds of organised crime—people smugglers who were taking money from vulnerable people, often sending them to their deaths at sea. The ending of people smuggling has, I think, been one of the greatest achievements, ensuring that we can in an orderly fashion take refugees from United Nations camps around the world and also take special humanitarian visas from situations like the crisis in Iraq.

The benefits of processing all of the existing backlog of asylum seeker applications will also mean that there will be no children in detention once those applications that were left to us by Labor are finalised. Indeed, there will be very few people at all in any detention centre in Australia once this government is through the enormous backlog of claims that are still to be processed.

More directly, in Sydney we have seen great achievements by the federal government and, for the first time, we have a government that is committed to building a second airport at Badgerys Creek for our biggest city and biggest economy—Sydney and New South Wales. What this means for Sydney is a massive infrastructure upgrade. The government and the Prime Minister have taken a very important approach and that is: infrastructure first, prior to the airport being developed. That means better roads, better rail connections and planning ahead of time to bring forward that important economic driver—a second Sydney airport, a Western Sydney airport, an airport that will be so important for the jobs and opportunities for young people from my electorate in Western Sydney for years to come.

We have seen important road projects like WestConnex already in the planning phase and ready to commence. This important connection within Sydney will provide job opportunities but will also relieve families from the tremendous amount of time they spend commuting in Sydney. NorthConnex, more particularly to my electorate, is going to be one of the most important connections for freight trucks travelling north-south between the Central Coast and Sydney. This is going to reduce cost, time and pollution and will be of great benefit to the community. Of course, the government is providing hundreds of millions of dollars for NorthConnex.

In addition to all of these significant achievements that are underway within one year in my city, we have also seen red-tape reduction. For the first time we have got a government that is committed to smaller government—an actual process twice a year to reduce the amount of regulations imposed upon business, to look for those things that government can do less, not more, to get out of the way and allow small business in particular to grow and create jobs.

While we recognise there is still a lot more to be done to enable those hardworking small business owners that generate most of the employment in this country more freedom and more ability to compete against big business, we are well underway in reducing red tape. In particular, I am pleased to play a role in reducing green tape in this country as well, and I note that the Minister for the Environment has been working very hard to ensure that environmental approvals are met, that big projects can get underway and that we can compete internationally for that capital.

Lastly, I note that the reforms that the government is bringing in higher education are perhaps once-in-a-generation reforms that will transform the education sector. That is the view of important people like the Group of Eight and commentators like Paul Kelly. They mean that we will have a world-class education sector. One year in, we are working very hard. There is a lot more to do, but the achievements are already delivering benefits for the community.