Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to his weekend boast that he would wedge Labor in this sitting period. But, as any golfer knows, while wedges are handy, drivers are what you need to get going! Given Australia is experiencing the slowest economic growth since the global financial crisis, why is the Prime Minister not concentrating on economic drivers that deliver growth, productivity and higher wages?

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

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. I can understand why the Leader of the Opposition is so focused on his own woes at the moment, but what this side of the House is focused on is growing the Australian economy. The Australian economy has been growing year in, year out under the policies of this government, which has seen record growth in employment and which has seen our industries going forward with our support, because we support all industries, not just some. We've backed in our industries, whether it's been in our overseas markets or here at home. We're investing in skills, we're investing in infrastructure, we're investing in lowering the tax burden. And, as we prepared this year's budget, we looked forward and we saw the challenges that the Australian economy would face in an increasingly complex time in the global economy. We put our plan to the Australian people and the Australian people chose our government and chose our plan, and we are delivering that plan.

Yet those opposite thought that the remedy to deal with the complex world that the global economy presents to Australia was to take $387 billion of higher taxes and put that on the economy. Increasing taxes on Australians is no way to prepare them so that they can move through the difficult challenges we face. We understood that. We understood allowing Australians to keep more of their own money was the way to ensure that they could have the resilience to deal with the challenges that are ahead.

Now, we know that the UK economy has gone backwards in the last quarter, and those opposite might say, 'But what about Brexit?' Well, in Singapore they're not affected by Brexit and that went backwards in the last quarter, and the economic powerhouse of Germany went backwards, but the Australian economy grew because, as the Reserve Bank governor himself has said, the fundamentals are strong. And the fundamentals will remain strong under the competent financial management and economic policies of the Liberal and the National parties. The Labor Party left economic wreckage in their wake when they left the Treasury benches, and for the last six years we have been cleaning up their mess and, having cleaned up their fiscal mess, we are now taking Australia forward into the future.