Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer advise the House how the government's economic plan for jobs and growth will create new employment opportunities and help more young Australians to get into the workforce and stay there?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question. I know of her long-running interest in and passion for supporting young people, getting them into jobs and dealing with the many youth issues in her community, for which she has a great passion. This government has a national economic plan for jobs and growth, an innovation and science program for start-up businesses, a defence plan for local high-tech manufacturing and technology, export trade deals to generate new business opportunities, tax cuts and incentives for small business and hardworking families, a sustainable budget with crackdowns on tax avoidance and loopholes, and of course guaranteed funding for health, education and roads that is paid for—not pretending to be with funding sources that are not there and only let people down.

In this budget we have also ensured that we can put in place, as the Prime Minister was referring to, a new jobs plan for young people, called PaTH. It is one that has been worked up on the basis of listening to young people and listening to business. Businesses want to give young people a go and get them into jobs, and young people want to get that go so that they can stay in jobs. We have to get past the 'just keep them busy' training programs, which do not get the job done. This is a very important program where we have stopped funding elements of programs that we just do not think are getting the results, to put them into a program where we believe we will get the results. I am very disappointed that the union movement has come out in opposition to this plan.

This program will first invest in getting young people to the starting line of a job by getting them job ready, by teaching them the expectations that they will have to meet to get a job. Secondly, it puts an internship in place—real work for the dole—which means that when they are getting those support payments they are in a real business doing real work and getting the real skills they need to be able to keep that job. Thirdly, it gives a wage subsidy to create a program at the end where they can be in a real job, where they continue to get their income support payment and the employer tops it up so that they will be paid a proper wage when they are doing the real work. At the end of that period it is up to that business and that young person to take the next step. What we have done is to de-risk and de-cost the opportunity for business to take people on. We have removed that risk.

The members opposite heckle and speak against this plan. I remind them that when they were in government 12 per cent of children aged under 15 were growing up in jobless families. This program does something about that. They should support it, not their union mates.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. This morning, when asked what the cost of his 10-year corporate tax cuts plan is, the Prime Minister replied, 'Well, the Treasury has modelled that.' Is the Prime Minister refusing to release the cost of his budget centrepiece because it is unfair and unsustainable? If the Treasury modelled the cost, why won't the Prime Minister tell the Australian people what it is?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasurer has already provided the answer to that, as indeed I have. As the shadow Treasurer knows full well, a cut to company tax drives investment, employment and growth, which is why the honourable member has advocated it.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It has a cost.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member calls out that it has a cost to revenue, and of course it does. No-one is suggesting that it does not. The cost over the forward estimates has been set out in detail in Budget Paper No. 2, as it always is. The cost over the 10 years has been calculated, taken into account by the Treasury and built into their medium-term projections, as I said earlier today—including in this question time. It is not the practice of the government—or, indeed, governments—to release itemised elements of the medium-term projections beyond the forward estimates, and the honourable member understands that. Indeed, the Treasurer quoted his colleague Senator Wong, when she was finance minister, making precisely the same point. So, the honourable member is asking the government to provide an itemised figure from medium-term projections that governments do not provide and that have not been provided in the past, and which Labor governments have declined to provide.

Of course, this remarkable change in attitude is hardly surprising. After all, this is somebody who is trying to find some justification for, grasping at straws to fill, the enormous black hole that he has created. You see, Mr Speaker, the problem that the shadow Treasurer has is that he knows as well as everyone does that forecasting over 10 years has a great deal of uncertainty, as the budget papers always say.

Mr Husic interjecting—

Of course it does.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Chifley has been warned.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And he knows that much greater precision can be encountered over a four-year estimate. But he also knows that his huge tax and spending plans will not look too good over four years, over the forward estimates, so he wants to kick them right out into the long grass over 10 years. He is not prepared to own up to what his plans, his black holes, will cost over the forward estimates because he knows, when they are lined up against our national economic plan, his proposals will stop employment, stunt growth and deter investment, whereas our plan drives jobs, drives growth, sets Australia up for the future.

Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources. Will the Deputy Prime Minister update the House on how the coalition's jobs and growth plan will deliver benefits to the people of Central Queensland and elsewhere?

Mr Husic interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Deputy Prime Minister will resume his seat. I have warned the member for Chifley. I have reminded him that I have warned him. He cannot stop interjecting. He will leave under 94(a).

Opposition members interjecting—

He will leave under 94(a) immediately, before I call the Deputy Prime Minister.

The member for Chifley then left the chamber.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. When we came to government, we came with a promise of a better future of strength and prosperity and a better return through the farm gate. We have been delivering on that—record cattle prices, record sheep prices, record almond prices, record chickpea prices and a strong turnaround in citrus, tropical fruits and wine prices. We have delivered on a stronger country-of-origin labelling system and on a new ACCC commissioner, Mick Keogh. We are making made sure that the Rural Financial Counselling Service and concessional loans are being rolled out across the nation. We are making sure that we look after people with the new farm household allowance criteria—that it is actually delivered to the people who are doing it tough.

We have delivered with the stronger rollout of mobile phone towers—in fact, more mobile phone towers than the previous Labor government, the previous Labor-Green-independent chaos, ever delivered. We have delivered on a stronger NBN rollout that has actually been done with a budget and to a plan. We have upgraded highways and we have duplicated highways—the Pacific Highway, the Bruce Highway and the New England Highway—with $100 million to be spent on new beef roads in the North. We have delivered $2½ billion in the budget and previously towards building new dams and water infrastructure. This goes on the back of the 100 per cent write-off on water infrastructure and the $2.5 million we spend a day on the upgrade and refurbishment of the Murray-Darling Basin.

We have delivered on three new free trade agreements—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Deputy Prime Minister will resume his seat. The member for Hunter, on a point order? He will state the point of order. I just point out, in all fairness, I have warned him of the consequences of frivolous points of order before, but I will hear the point of order.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And introduced a backpackers tax.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Hunter will leave under 94(a). The Deputy Prime Minister has the call.

The member for Hunter then left the chamber.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are delivering on jobs for the electorates of Flynn, Capricornia and Dawson. We are making sure that the people of the Riverina have jobs. We are making sure that they have jobs at Shepparton. We are making sure that they have jobs in Western Australia.

We are making sure that we are delivering for the future. The best way to deliver for the economic future, for jobs for ourselves, for our children and for our grandchildren is to make sure that we have the financial and economic management of our nation under control. People well remember that when we handed the keys of the Treasury over to the Labor Party after the Howard government the world owed Australia, the world owed us tens of billions of dollars. Yet when we got the Treasury back from the Labor-Green-independent chaos we owed the world hundreds of billions of dollars. So where is your future better secured? Where is your future better delivered? Where does the competence reside for a better future for jobs and for the prosperity of so many people in regional Australia? It is quite clear: competence of good government resides with a strong coalition.

Opposition members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. The member for McEwen has been warned. He should—

Mr Mitchell interjecting—

Yes, you have. You did not hear it because you were continually interjecting. If you interject once more, you will be ejected. I am glad that I have had the chance to remind you while it is quiet.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the Prime Minister's repeated claims in previous answers today that previous budgets have not outlined 10-year costings. Given that the 2014 budget outlined $80 billion worth of cuts to schools and hospitals over 10 years, why does this budget not reveal the 10-year cost of his budget centrepiece? Why is the Prime Minister not honestly explaining to the Australian people the reason why he will not tell them?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is that the best you can do?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, indeed: is that the best you can do? A very good question addressed to the shadow Treasurer. The shadow Treasurer knows full well that the budget papers provide detailed estimates of revenues and expenditure over the forward estimates and then provide medium-term projections, as described on page 319 of Budget Paper No. 1, based on projecting the assumptions arising from existing policy with certain constraints placed into them, which I described. All of us understand that the closer a forecast is the more likely it is to be correct because there are so many uncertainties attendant on long-range forecasts.

One of the things we understand is that the direction of our national economic plan is going to deliver strong economic growth and strong jobs. It is going to deliver the jobs growth that Australians deserve. It is going to do that because we are backing Australian enterprise. We are backing innovation. We are encouraging Australians to invest in start-up companies. We are backing our defence industry, advanced manufacturing and technology here in Australia. We are ensuring that our tax is sustainable and fit for purpose into the future.

We are making very major changes to superannuation and also improving the fairness and flexibility of the superannuation system in particular to benefit women who have interrupted work patterns and who will be able to take advantage of a flexibility that enables them to catch up when they return to the workplace.

There are many other features of our superannuation changes, and there is a cost to be borne undoubtedly by people on very high incomes. But the benefits of those changes are to be found by people on lower incomes, whether they are the benefits of the LISTO or the relief in taxation on people earning $37,000 or less, and by people who are independent contractors and want to be able to contribute to super in the same way they would if they were an employee or, indeed, people over 65 who are still working and want to be able to contribute to super.

So right across the board we are making our tax system more sustainable, backing enterprise with the company tax cuts, backing small business with the expansion of the small business concession, backing innovation and backing the return of the budget to the balance that it needs to reach in order to ensure that we live within our means. We have an economic plan for growth and jobs to secure the future of our children. Everything Labor proposes stand in the way.