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

I thank Senator Hume, the Chair of the Senate Economics Legislation Committee, for that question. I am pleased to advise Senator Hume and the Senate that the government's commitment is to ensure that we do everything we can to help ensure that families across Australia have the best possible opportunity to get ahead, that the economy is as strong as possible, that as many jobs as possible can be created in the economy and that Australians today and future generations of Australians have the best possible opportunity to get a good, well-paid job and to get ahead. Unlike the current Leader of the Labor Party, who seems to think that jobs grow on trees, on this side of the chamber we understand that jobs are created by successful, profitable businesses.

The more successful, the more profitable, businesses across Australia can be, the more Australians they can hire and the better wages they can afford to pay. That is why this government's strategy is to make it easier for businesses across Australia to be successful—by lowering their tax burden so they can attract more investment, improve productivity, become more profitable and hire more Australians and pay them better wages, by improving access to key markets around the world and through an ambitious free trade agenda, by reducing the cost of doing business through a deregulation and innovation agenda, and by reducing the cost of doing business by putting downward pressure on electricity prices. It is important to remember that Australia is in its 26th year of continuous growth. Jobs growth, as the Leader of the Government has been saying, has been running very strongly compared to what it was under the Labor Party in government. Indeed, over the most recent 12-month period more than four times as many jobs have been created across Australia than in the last four years of the Labor government. The trade balance— (Time expired)