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

I am pleased to inform the Senate that the government are making good progress now, heading in the right direction, when it comes to implementing our plan for stronger growth, more jobs and repairing the budget. When we came into government, we inherited a weakening economy, rising unemployment and a budget position which was rapidly deteriorating on the back of unsustainable and unaffordable spending growth. Over the last 22 months or so, the government have been working very hard to turn that situation around. We have been implementing our plan for stronger growth by getting rid of the carbon tax and the mining tax, getting rid of red-tape costs for small business to the tune of $2 billion a year, rolling out record investment in productivity-enhancing infrastructure and improving access to key markets in our region—in China, South Korea and Japan.

In the past fortnight, we have been particularly successful in making progress on our economic and fiscal reform agenda. We were able to legislate the Jobs and Small Business package. As late as today, we have been able to legislate to reverse the disastrous decision the previous government made in relation to employee share schemes. The Senate today supported our efforts to again ensure that employee share schemes are able to provide a real incentive for people to help the businesses that employ them to be as successful as they can be.

Over the last fortnight, the government has been able to pass, through the parliament, through the Senate, more than $14 billion worth of budget improvement measures, which means that, since last year's budget, we have been able to legislate budget improvements to the tune of more than $50 billion over the current forward estimates. The government are getting on with the job. We are getting things done.