Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

The government absolutely agrees and I agree that chaos and dysfunction in government is a very bad idea, and that is of course why the Australian people threw the Labor Party out of office. That is of course why the Australian people in September 2013 voted for the strong and united team that the coalition presented at the last election and the strong and united team that this coalition has been in government for most of the period that we have been in government.

It is no secret. We have had a couple of difficult weeks. We have come out the other end. We are going back to providing strong and effective government. And do you know what? The very important thing is that we have the policies to put Australia on a stronger foundation for the future. We have the policies to clean up the mess that you left behind. We have the policies to get spending growth under control so that it is sustainable into the future. We have the policies to strengthen the economy, to create more jobs and to help families. Of course, we are making progress. The economy is growing more strongly now than it did under Labor. The national accounts came out today, and what they show is that the economy over the last 12 months has grown by 2.5 per cent, up from 1.9 per cent in the last 12 months under the Labor government.

Last year, the first year of the coalition government, more than 600 jobs were created every day—three time as many as the year before. We are making progress. Do we still have a fair way to go? Of course, we recognise that. We cannot fix all of the problems that Labor created over three years of bad, chaotic and dysfunctional government in 18 months—but we will keep at it. We will continue to work as a strong, united and effective team in government. Even over the last few weeks, as we were dealing with a few internal challenges, we were still providing much better government than Labor every did. The Australian people know that this is a government that is working very hard— (Time expired)