Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer inform the House how the government has put in place the foundations for a strong and prosperous economy to ensure a safe and secure Australia?

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

I thank the honourable member for Murray for her question, because she recognises—as do all my colleagues and the people of Australia—that you have to undertake change, and it can be difficult change, in order to earn the growth and earn the prosperity that is going to come to Australia's advantage over the years ahead.

In the beginning of this year we started the process by commencing budget repair. As a result of our initiatives we reduced the debt of Australia by $300 billion over a decade. As a result of our initiatives we are able to roll out the largest infrastructure project in Australia's history. As a result of what we have done we have been able to facilitate significant state economic reform through our asset recycling program, which has actually turned the tide in the states to start delivering new infrastructure that is productive, on the back of asset sales that should have happened years ago. And as a result of this government's initiatives we have been able to privatise Medibank Private, with the proceeds going back into new infrastructure investment, and that sale alone—the third biggest initial public offer in the world this year—raised $1 billion more than was expected in the budget. On top of all of that, we removed $2 billion of red tape—repealing, tearing up 57,000 pages of legislation. Fifty-seven thousand pages of red tape for business—we tore it up this year. I know it is hard. As the member for Murray and others on my side—on all sides—know, ending the age of entitlement for industry was a hard decision, but it needed to be made. As a result of that decision, we were able to get free trade agreements with Korea, Japan and China that the Labor party could never deliver. As a result of what we have done, we have made government smaller abolishing 76 agencies, authorities and boards.

We have approved $1 trillion of new projects—300 major projects as a result of environmental fast tracking. We have rebuilt employee share schemes after the mess that was made by the member for McMahon. We are fixing the problems that Labor created. One of those problems was 100 un-enacted tax initiatives that were dating back more than a decade. There were 100 announcements from Labor and the previous coalition government, and we got rid of them. We dealt with them so that we would get rid of uncertainty for business. On top of all that, it is the coalition government, the Abbott government, that has facilitated the economic growth that has delivered twice the number of jobs created in Australia each month than were created under the poor economic management of Labor.