Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister outline to the House why it is so important to have a stable and certain approach to government policy in order to deal with challenging issues? How does this compare with past approaches?

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

I thank the member for Braddon for his question, because he knows that stability and certainty in economic policy delivers jobs. As I've just reminded the House, for three years jobs have increased every single month under this government and that is the longest run in consecutive monthly job increases that this country has ever seen. It is part of a pattern of this government in delivering stability, certainty and a measured approach to delivering the right outcomes for Australians.

It has been that approach which has seen us restore the budget back to surplus this year from what we inherited as a deficit under the previous government. It has seen us restore order on our borders. It has seen us get trade deals done where they weren't happening before. It has seen us get our Kyoto targets for 2020 back on track, with a 1.1 billion tonne turnaround in our emissions reduction abatement to ensure we meet the Kyoto 2020 targets, which we will meet next year.

It means that we're restoring the capability of our defence forces, getting it back to two per cent of GDP, which means when I talk to our allies and partners around the world with whom we share the burden and share the load I can say now, as the leader of this government, together with my predecessors who also contributed significantly to this task, that Australia carries its own weight when it comes to our defence heavy lifting. We have done that while also increasing hospital and school funding to record levels.

This is in stark contrast to the policies of panic and crisis that we saw from the Labor Party when they were in government, with record deficits and a spend of $6 billion to $8 billion on overpriced school halls, $16 billion on border blowouts, $2 billion to implement a solar and insulation program and then $1 billion to fix it. Then, on top of that, they totally struck down the live cattle trade for Australian farmers overnight off the back of a TV program. And then, on top of that, they sent stimulus cheques to dead people and claimed that was a sound, rational economic policy.

When it comes to stability and certainty, the Australian people know that they will find it with the Liberals and the Nationals, and they know a government that maintains that is never one to go into panic and crisis, which is what we see from the Labor Party.