Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Senator for his question. The government's plans for the future will help drive jobs and opportunity in Western Australia. Since Labor came to office in 2007, 186,300 jobs have been created in Western Australia: 1.3 million more Western Australians are in work than ever before.

Western Australian households with a $300,000 mortgage are now paying $5,000 a year less in repayments under Labor than they were when the Liberals last held office. Almost 120,000 families receive the schoolkids bonus, worth $123.6 million. Thanks to the Gillard government's tax cuts, 779,000 Western Australians are paying less tax, 58,000 Western Australians are paying no tax and 628,000 got a tax cut of more than $300. More than 358,000 Western Australians are getting a boost to their retirement savings through a low-income superannuation contribution, and those 358,000 Western Australians know that if an Abbott government is elected that $300 will be taken back from them in a tax hike imposed by those opposite. (Time expired)