Julian Simmonds (Ryan, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Treasurer, how has the government's plan for strong economic management enabled the government to meet its targets and to create new jobs? Is the Treasurer aware of any alternative policies that would threaten the jobs of hardworking Australians?

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Ryan for his question and acknowledge his experience as a local councillor before coming to this place. In his electorate there are more than 19,000 small- and medium-sized businesses that are benefiting from the tax cuts that we have passed and from our extended instant asset write-off announced in last year's budget.

When we came to government, unemployment was 5.7 per cent and rising, investment was in freefall, and the budget deficit was $48½ billion, or around three per cent of GDP. That occurred on Labor's watch, when they had been enjoying iron ore prices more than double where they are today, at $180. They also saw in their last year in office more than 62,000 small businesses close their doors. Since we've come to government, we've delivered on our plan to create more than one million new jobs—in fact, more than 1½ million new jobs. We've delivered on our plan to lower taxes, legislating more than $300 billion of tax cuts through the parliament, which will see 94 per cent of taxpayers pay a marginal rate of no more than 30c in the dollar. We've delivered on our plan to cut taxes for small and medium sized businesses—millions of small and medium sized businesses—who will see their company tax rate go down to 25 per cent. We've delivered on our plan to secure more free trade agreements—in fact, taking the percentage of our two-way trade covered by free trade agreements from 26 per cent to more than 70 per cent. And what we have seen is employment growth today at 1.9 per cent. That is nearly double the OECD average and nearly triple the average that we inherited.

Today the participation rate across the economy in terms of employment is 66.1 per cent. This compares to 64.8 per cent when we took office. Over 300,000 jobs were created in 2018-19—a hundred thousand more than Treasury had forecast. And more women and more senior Australians are finding employment. In fact, female employment has increased by 183,000 in the last 12 months, with seven out of 10 jobs in full-time work, with female participation at a record high.

This is what comes with disciplined economic management. The Australian people and the Australian economy dodged a bullet at the last election. Could you imagine dealing with the drought, the fires and now the coronavirus with $387 billion of higher taxes? That's what the Australian people were going to face under a Labor government. Thankfully, they got a coalition government. We're creating more jobs and delivering lower taxes.