Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer update the House on action the government is taking to reduce the cost-of-living pressures for hardworking Australians? How are government policies giving Australian families the opportunities they need to get ahead?

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

I thank the member for Durack for her question. I thank all members on this side of the House for their concern and their acknowledgment of the very real challenges that Australians are facing as we move from the mining investment boom through to ensuring that Australians can look forward with confidence in the future of our economy. We are in our 26th year of economic growth. That has not occurred by accident. It has occurred as a result of the hard work of Australians, of businesses, of employees and of others who have delivered a generation of prosperity that this country has never known before. The way you continue to ensure that prosperity remains in place is by doing a number of things, which this government is doing.

The first of those is to ensure that we continue to attract the investment into business, into enterprises and into products that provide the jobs and provide the wages that Australians can rely on in the future. So our enterprise tax plan, our infrastructure plan—just alone on reducing the compliance costs for business, as the Minister for Small Business will know, we have reduced the compliance cost for business, in particular small business, in this country by $5.8 billion every year ongoing. These are the sorts of initiatives that ensure that we are able to drive business growth which supports jobs.

On top of that, it is this government that ensured in this year's budget that we have put 500,000 Australians in the place where they do not go into the second-highest tax bracket. It is this government which has reduced personal income taxes for Australians who were earning ordinary average real-time earnings, and we have ensured that they have not gone into the second-highest tax bracket. It is this side of the House that has been seeking to ensure affordable child care for Australian families now for years. The only ones who have stood in the way of that are those who sit opposite, the Labor Party. Those in the Labor Party do not understand that, if you want to invest in new services, you have to be able to pay for them. This side of the House understands that. They have stood in the way of more-affordable child care now for several years. Now they have the opportunity to turn that around in these last few sitting weeks before the budget, and I would encourage them to do that. I know Australian families would like them to do that, and they would be encouraging them to do exactly that.

But it is not just that; it is the cost of energy as well—as the Prime Minister, I think, has rightly pointed out. Households are facing higher energy costs because of the mindless pursuit of ideological policies by Labor state governments. Those opposite share those policies. On this side of the House, we embrace all forms of energy—whether it is coal or wind or any of the forms of energy that will deliver more affordable prices for householders and business. (Time expired)

Mr Bowen interjecting—

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

The member for McMahon might settle down. The member for Sydney has the call.