David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer inform the House why it is important to lay strong economic foundations for future growth?

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

I certainly do thank the member for Lyne for that question, noting that, not only as a medical professional but also as someone who has run a business, he knows that you have to earn the future. It is vitally important that we as a nation earn the future, earn future prosperity and earn future growth. Australia is blessed in that we are in our 24th consecutive year of economic growth, but there are some significant headwinds. Obviously there are domestic challenges, such as how we pay for the needs of an ageing population, and, importantly, the transition in the domestic economy, as we move from massive investment in mining and resources into a production phase and, at the same time, we endeavour to broaden the growth across the economy.

One of the reasons that we have set about delivering our economic action strategy is that we are trying to prepare Australia for a better future. When we first came into government we commenced the budget repair task. We reduced projected debt by $300 billion, and we were smart in approaching this budget in making sure that we built in the structural reforms that would give us savings over time without harming the Australian economy in the near future. We delivered the largest infrastructure package in Australia's history, and its timeliness could not be better given the massive number of job losses in engineering associated with the mining industry. We want those people redeployed to the biggest infrastructure program in Australian history.

It has been our initiatives that have facilitated micro-economic reform at a state level, where we have state government's that recognise that instead of using hard-earned taxpayers' money to try and replenish the capital of electricity assets, or ports and so on, they can redeploy that capital into new productive infrastructure and still give the mums and dads of Australia the chance to own those Australian assets through sales. Crucially, we got rid of the mining tax, we got rid of the carbon tax and we dealt with a backlog of nearly 100 announced but unlegislated tax measures from the previous Labor government. And we undertook our own reform at our own level by selling Medibank Private for billions of dollars more than was expected.

But, of course, you need to grow your market. As a nation we do produce goods and we need to make sure we have more buyers out there. That is why we have been able to land the three free trade agreements with Japan, Korea and China. And I can advise the House that I have just been told that the Korean free trade agreement has passed through their parliament. So we are well underway to start the process of growing the markets and delivering the prosperity that every Australian needs and expects and only the Labor Party opposes.