Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister confirm that he promised Australians economic leadership but has delivered flat wages growth, higher power prices and falling living standards? He promised intelligent debate—

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

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

The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. Members on my right will not interject. The Leader of the Opposition will begin his question again.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can the Prime Minister confirm that he promised Australians economic leadership but has delivered flat wages growth, falling living standards and higher power prices; he promised intelligent debate but delivers two-word slogans, instead of three-word slogans; and he promised a national style of leadership but has sold out the national interest for self-interest? Prime Minister, after two years of failure and disappointment, what's really changed? How are you any better than the member for Warringah?

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

I'm not sure whether it's the Leader of the Opposition's lack of self-awareness or his innumeracy that causes him to ask this question on a day when we see record jobs growth and we see that in the last two years half a million new jobs have been created. Really, what extraordinary, impeccable timing!

When you put these things in your diary, when you say, 'On 14 September, remember to ask the Prime Minister a snarky question', you've got to be able to review it and check what's happened that morning. You've got to check the facts. What we've seen in terms of economic growth is GDP growing by 0.8 per cent in the last quarter. It has grown by 1.8 per cent through the year. Our economic plan is working. Businesses are investing: new private business investment has grown in the last quarter by 1.1 per cent to be 1½ per cent higher than a year ago. We all know we inherited an economy which had seen mining investment scaled down, as it was always going to, and the concern was how we could get the rest of the economy to invest. What did we do? We did what the Leader of the Opposition said we should do when he was in government, which was cut business taxes. We have done that. We have cut business taxes for companies that employ nearly half of all of the Australian workforce. What does that do? It does exactly what he said it would do, before he did his double backflip. It provides more investment and, hence, more jobs. That's why we're seeing more jobs. As I said, jobs and growth is not a slogan; it is an outcome. Jobs and growth, that's what we are delivering.

We are also ensuring that Australians get their essential services. We're unfreezing Labor's Medicare freeze—we're taking that off and getting on with it. We're ensuring that all Australian kids have access to consistent national transparent needs based funding. The Labor Party used to be in favour of that. They used to talk about that, but they did 27 shonky, shady deals—completely inconsistent—and then tried to stop us delivering the very vision that David Gonski promised.

It's been two years of great achievement but, above all, it's been two years since I became Prime Minister, building on the outstanding work of the member for Warringah. What that has done is deliver strong jobs growth.