Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Before I start my contribution, I'll address a few of the comments from Senator McCarthy. She talked about the importance of improving the life of Australians. Well, getting the fundamental settings in the economy right to see a million new jobs created in five years is improving the life of Australians. Getting our welfare numbers down to the lowest level in 20 years is improving the life of Australians. That is solely what this government has been and continues to be focused upon.

This government has delivered lower, simpler and fairer personal income taxes for all Australians. The Personal Income Tax Plan, which was passed by this place earlier this year, means low- and middle-income earners receive additional tax relief of up to $530. That is significant. We've got changing of the tax brackets to address the issue of bracket creep, which has recently forced so many more hardworking Australians into higher and higher tax brackets. What's the final phase of the legislated plan, the plan that has passed through this parliament? It's to abolish an entire tax bracket so that 94 per cent of Australians will be paying no more than 32½c in each dollar of their personal income. That is a significant achievement of this government and shows that the priority of this government is to improve the lives of all Australians. It was a big win for hardworking Australians when we saw those personal income tax cuts passed by this chamber and the parliament. It allows people to keep more of their own money in their own pockets to make their own decisions. We've already seen the small and medium-sized business tax cuts, designed to keep Australian businesses competitive in a very highly competitive global marketplace, legislated through this parliament. We want the hardworking Australians, the small and medium-sized businesses of Australia, to be the absolute best they can be, and we do this through taking the burden of taxation off them.

We've still got before this chamber—perhaps somewhat surprisingly—a very important set of business tax cuts to extend the company tax cuts to all businesses. That is about extending the opportunity to more people across the entire economy. Our philosophy is based entirely around getting people off welfare and into jobs and around getting business to grow to get more people into work—to improve their wages, to improve their standard of living and to improve their opportunities into the future. That is what this government has been delivering.

We've delivered it in a number of other ways, such as through the signing of a record number of free trade agreements. We've seen the free trade agreements with China, Peru, Korea and Japan. We've seen the work on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. There are also negotiations underway with the European Union and a post-Brexit United Kingdom, and obviously there's a lot more water to go under the bridge until those things are finalised. And those free trade agreements are not just pieces of paper. They deliver real results to people on the ground, particularly in the areas I'm interested in, the agricultural exports area. We've seen some phenomenal growth in some of those markets, particularly, for example, the Korean market, where we've seen individual commodities increase by up to 50 per cent per annum—quite extraordinary growth rates and wonderful opportunities.

I'll loop back around to where I started, which is record jobs growth. Jobs are what it's all about: 412,300 jobs created last year, 75 per cent of them full-time jobs. More Australians are in work today than ever before. That is great news for Australian families. That is what improves the lives of Australian families. Over a million jobs have been created in fewer than five years, since the coalition came into office. That improves the lives of all those Australians and all those who are supported by the people in jobs. There have been 770,000 new jobs created since September 2015—again, more than half of them full-time. There have been 339,000 new jobs created over the last 12 months. Jobs growth has been at 2.7 per cent over the last 12 months. Compare that with the 0.08 per cent growth over the last 12 months of the last Labor government. Female participation in the economy is at a record high, at 60.6 per cent. The number of Australians who are unemployed has fallen by 59,000 since September 2015, and the unemployment rate has fallen from 6.1 per cent to 5.4 per cent. In Labor's last year in office, unemployment rose by 33,000, and underemployment increased by 39 per cent.

So, you can see that there is a very strong track record of achievement, a strong track record of achieving very, very good results for the hardworking Australians who want to keep as much of their own money as they possibly can, through our Personal Income Tax Plan, and for growing small and medium-sized businesses, who want to keep as much of the money as they can from our company tax plan, to ensure the growth, the jobs of the future and the wage growth of the future and through all those things ensure that we have a successful and prosperous economy into the future.

Debate adjourned.