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

I thank Senator Bushby for that question. In this parliament the Turnbull government will work to build on the progress that we have made when it comes to strengthening the economy, creating more jobs and repairing the budget that we made in the last parliament. Today, the Australian economy is growing more strongly than it was when we came into government. It is growing more strongly than any of the G7 economies and, indeed, it is growing more strongly than the OECD average. Employment growth today is stronger—much stronger than what it was when we came into government. I am sure that Senator Cash will have more to say about that over the next few hours and days.

More than 440,000 new jobs were created in our first term of government, including nearly 220,000 over this past year. That is despite the additional pressures on our economy from slower global economic growth and from significantly lower global prices for our key commodity exports. Our economy continues to transition from record resource investment-driven growth to broader drivers of growth, and that comes with challenges for families and businesses in some parts of our economy. We have to continue to work as a government and as a parliament to ensure that Australia is as competitive, as productive, as innovative and as resilient as possible to deal with external shocks and to take advantage of the opportunities that are coming our way.

That is why the government will continue to implement our national economic plan for jobs and growth, with our focus on promoting innovation and supporting start-up businesses to employ more Australians, with our focus on supporting local high-end manufacturing and shipbuilding, with our focus on signing more export trade deals to boost the export of Australian products and services to markets around the world, and, indeed, by implementing our 10-year Enterprise Tax Plan. We will be looking for the support of the parliament to give effect to that very important plan. (Time expired)