James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

One can only assume that the Labor Party settled on their topic for today, moved by Senator Cameron no less, before opening Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper this morning. Had they done so, they might have appreciated the irony of accusing others of being divided, particularly given the starring role that Senator Cameron himself played in that newspaper article. For those playing at home who haven't read the journalism of Mr Rob Harris this morning, he helpfully detailed the profound and deep divisions within the Labor Party on the question of trade and, in particular, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Not only was Mr Harris able to go inside the Labor caucus and recount in some detail the exchanges between Labor colleagues over a profound issue of national importance—that is, free trade—but he was helpfully able to do so by relying on effectively a transcript of the proceedings—a transcript so detailed that it was able to recount exactly what each member of the Labor caucus, including the shadow ministry, had to say on the TPP.

This is a party which is self-evidently hopelessly divided on a key question. We had frontbenchers getting up and speaking against each other on a major policy issue. On the one hand, you have people like Jason Clare, the shadow trade minister, speaking in favour, with Senator Penny Wong, the opposition's leader in the Senate, backing him up. On the other hand, you have Senator Doug Cameron apparently moving a motion to recommit to debate and re-examine in their caucus again this week the issue which they had apparently resolved last week in their caucus. I presume that the opposition tactics committee in the Senate hasn't got their subscription to the Herald Sun up to date. They haven't been receiving their papers in the morning. I can only encourage them to make sure they are reading Melbourne's biggest-selling newspaper before they settle on their questions or MPI topics.

Of course, this is a political party which only a few months ago had an alternative leader in Mr Albanese, was openly trailing his coat for the Labor leadership. In the lead-up to the by-elections in Longman, Braddon and elsewhere, Mr Albanese was helpfully posing for nice photos for newspapers, granting tell-all interviews about his personal story and background, and openly flaunting and showing his wares for all of his colleagues to see. This is a party that, were it not for some slightly better-than-expected results in the by-elections, fortunately for them, would now be in the midst of a serious debate about their own leadership—and may yet be again, because we know they have a track record in this area.

By contrast, the Liberal-National government—our government—is not only governing for all Australians; it is actually delivering for all Australians. This is a government which, before the 2013 election, promised that we would deliver more than one million new jobs in our first two terms of office. We promised that we would do that. When we did so, at the time, we were told by Labor and the media that it was a fanciful and ridiculous promise and there was no way we could ever meet it.

Not only have we met that task, not only did we meet that task early; we've comfortably exceeded that task, with 1,114,500 new jobs created under this government. That's more than one million lives changed for the better because of the successful policies of this government, implemented while we've governed for all Australians. More than half of those jobs have been full time. Almost 350,000 of those jobs were created in the 2017-18 financial year alone. This was the most jobs created in any financial year since 2004-05, back in the glory days of the Howard government. More than 100,000 of these jobs were for young Australians, and that is the most for any year on record. That's 100,000 young people's lives improved. They're getting a good start in life, a step on the first rung of the ladder of opportunity—which those opposite used to talk about—thanks to the policies of this government.

According to figures released by the ABS, 2017 was the first full year in which employment rose every single month since the ABS began collecting that data in 1978. This didn't happen by accident. This didn't happen by coincidence. This happened because of a series of policies implemented by the Liberal-National government over the past five years that were deliberately aimed at creating employment and opportunities for Australians. It's resulted in an economy growing at 3.4 per cent, higher than at any time since 2012 and the height of the mining boom. Under this Liberal-National government, our economy is growing at a faster rate than many of the world's largest advanced economies, including Canada, Germany, France, Italy, the UK and Japan. It's the direct result of the policies we put in place—for example, the first and vitally important stages of our enterprise tax plan. We have legislated a five per cent cut in company tax for all Australian businesses with a turnover of up to $50 million.

This will deliver the lowest small business tax rate in half a century. It's already benefitting more than 3.3 million businesses which, between them, employ about seven million Australians. Even more businesses and Australians working for those businesses would have benefitted if it hadn't been for the opposition of the Labor Party and the Greens in this chamber. Sadly, even those businesses which have benefitted from this reduction in tax—and those workers and shareholders of those businesses and customers of those businesses who have benefitted from this new opportunity—are under grave threat if Mr Bill Shorten and his Labor team win the next election, because we know they're planning to substantially reverse those tax cuts for small business.

It hasn't only happened because of our small business tax cut plan. It's also happened because we've restored the rule of law in the building and construction industry. We've re-established the Australian Building and Construction Commission. We've established the Registered Organisations Commission. Together they are cracking down on the wanton lawlessness in that industry perpetuated by some unions—in particular, the CFMEU—and, again, this is at threat if Mr Shorten becomes Prime Minister. It's also because of our free trade agenda—a comprehensive free trade agenda that we don't just talk about on this side of the chamber but we actually deliver on, in stark contrast to the previous Labor government, which liked to talk so much about its embrace of a multinational trade agenda but never delivered anything tangible. We've delivered free trade agreements with our most significant trading partners, not only with China but also with Korea, Japan, Peru and the one we were talking about earlier, the Trans-Pacific Partnership with 11 major nations.

This is the very same Trans-Pacific Partnership that the opposition advised us to abandon. Mr Shorten, Mr Clare and others said it was a dead agreement, that there was no hope and that, once the United States pulled out, it would not proceed. How wrong that advice was and how lucky it was that this government, particularly our previous trade minister, Steven Ciobo, did not follow that advice. How lucky it was that they continued to prosecute that trade agreement, now successfully signed, and, I hope, soon successfully legislated through this chamber.