Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on how the government's plan for a stronger economy is supporting the aspirations of all Australians, including those in my community of Leichhardt? Is the Prime Minister aware of any alternative approaches?

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

I thank the honourable member for his question. The honourable member knows all about aspiration. He knows all about hard work. He knows all about getting in, having a go, realising your dreams and being prepared to back yourself. He knows that that is what makes the Australian economy work—the enterprise, the belief and the courage of Australians, overwhelmingly small and family businesses with under $50 million turnover, the ones that are getting the benefit of our tax cuts, which Labor wants to repeal. That's where most Australians work; that's where the jobs are being created.

We want to enable every Australian to have the highest hopes and the greatest ambitions and to make their aspirations a reality by giving them incentives to get ahead. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition said today that aspiration was a mystery to her. It used to be what the Labor Party was about, but that was in the days when the Labor Party members had actually worked, when you had truck drivers, boilermakers and brickies, when you had real workers. Manual labour in those days was not the Mexican band that it is to Labor today.

Mr Perrett interjecting—

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

The member for Moreton!

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

Labor has failed and is failing the very people it was founded to represent.

Because of that stronger economy that we are enabling, that we are seeing, and because of the record jobs growth we are seeing, we have the resources to pay for the essential services Australians need. That's why we can increase funding on public hospitals in the electorate of Longman, in the northern part of Brisbane, by 53 per cent over the time that Labor was in. It's why we're able to offer a five-year hospital funding agreement to the states, which will involve $30 billion more spent on public hospitals. That is why our comprehensive income tax reform rewards enterprise and initiative. It is reform that will see 94 per cent of Australians pay no more than 32½c in any extra dollar they earn from $41,000 up to $200,000—a marginal rate of 32½c. It's a massive reform. It rewards effort. It encourages enterprise. It provides the support for the aspiration that is at the very heart of our beliefs, but is now a mystery to Labor.