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

My question is to the Prime Minister. This government has had three Prime Ministers, three Deputy Prime Ministers, with a fourth on its way, and three Treasurers. How can he claim that a vote for the Liberals on Saturday is a vote for stability, when this unfit and unstable government has already fallen to pieces?

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

Take note: 1.15 million jobs. There's a start! A five per cent unemployment rate, down from the last election—down from when you were Treasurer and you left the books in a fiscal mess. The budget is coming back into balance in 2019-20. The AAA credit rating is retained—a AAA credit rating that that shadow Treasurer said couldn't weather tax cuts. We've legislated tax cuts and we've retained the AAA credit rating.

On Saturday, the people of Wentworth have the opportunity to elect an outstanding candidate in Dave Sharma. Dave Sharma is someone who has served his country as a diplomat, as the Ambassador to Israel. He is someone who started up as an immigrant to this country and has become an ambassador for this country. He is someone who understands the issues in relation to the Middle East clearly better than anyone who sits on that side of the chamber. More importantly than that, he has a deep compassion and deep knowledge of how he can make a better life for those who live in his community.

He will form part of a team that has been providing the strong economic management that has been delivering the jobs and incomes that Australians rely on. It has also ensured the government has been able to guarantee Medicare, guarantee affordable medicines, have record funding in schools and hospitals, and to pay for the NDIS—something that was a bipartisan vision of this chamber. I commend former Prime Minister Gillard for initiating that, but it is this side of the House that has been able to pay for it because we are committed to a strong economy that delivers.

On the weekend there is a choice. There is a choice on whether the government can continue to govern with its majority and continue to deliver the important economic leadership that is supporting 29,000 small businesses in Wentworth. Some 60,000 Wentworth residents will benefit from the tax cuts we legislated and which the Labor Party, if they ever get into the government benches, will cut in half. Labor will strip $70 billion out of our legislated income tax cuts. They will hit self-funded retirees and retirees more broadly, including pensioners, with a $5-billion-a-year retirees tax. Labor's $200 billion in higher taxes will suffocate the economy. Only by voting for Dave Sharma, the Liberal candidate for Wentworth, this weekend can Liberal voters and voters in Wentworth be guaranteed of the strong economic management which is supported by a majority Liberal-National government.