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

I will acknowledge that Senator Gallacher is the first one from those opposite who actually acknowledges the fact that there was an election a few short weeks ago and that the Australian people spoke. The Australian people spoke extraordinarily decisively on the two competing economic policies up for grabs. They had a policy of the politics of envy—big government, socialism—from those opposite, and from this government they had a very clear plan for keeping the Australian economy strong and resilient in the face of some serious international economic headwinds. The only people in denial in this place are those opposite. They're in denial about what happened a few short weeks ago, when the Australian people spoke. The verdict of the Australian people was very clear. We took a plan to the election, a plan that—as I read out in this place yesterday from a media release from the Treasurer, Mr Frydenberg—outlined the economic headwinds that Australia faced. It was a media release, from before the last election, that set out this government's plan to address those issues, to keep those 28 years of economic growth on track, for the future, to see our economy keep growing, to lower taxes, to keep funding those essential services that Australians require, to keep people in jobs, to grow jobs. It was a comprehensive economic plan from this government.

What do we hear from those opposite? We hear about floundering. We hear about faltering. We hear about stagnation. But, more than anything else, we hear them falling back into that sad, old pattern of the politics of envy, where they always go when they're in trouble. It's the politics of envy. This government is delivering. It's delivering on the $100 billion infrastructure plan over the next 10 years. There are a record high number of people in jobs. Unemployment rose in the latest quarter, in May of this year, by 42,300 to a record high of 12,868,000-plus jobs. Do those opposite ever talk about jobs? Of course they don't.

Jobs growth is fundamental. It's about reducing the number of those on welfare. We want to have fewer people on welfare and more people in work, which is exactly what this government has been delivering over the last six years. We took to the Australian people a very clear plan for keeping on delivering those new jobs into the Australian economy and continuing to see fewer people need the support of government via income support. There are 230,000 fewer people dependent on income support than four years ago. That is an outstanding result. That is 230,000 individuals—hundreds of thousands of families—who have moved from the welfare system into work and who are now playing an active role in the Australian economy. The full-time unemployment category now accounts for almost 74 per cent of the employment growth over the last year. We're putting people into full-time jobs. Business is giving people the opportunity to gain access to those full-time jobs, which is the best thing that an economy can give to someone—to get them out of the welfare system, to get them out of dependency on government assistance and get them into a job.

As seen recently in the HILDA Survey, mean disposable household income rose to $55,200 in 2017, up from $54,680 in 2016. In fact, it's the largest increase in mean disposable household income since 2013. Wages are growing at the highest rate since December 2014, at 2.4 per cent. Inflation is currently 1.3 per cent. We've seen that private sector wages are growing at their fastest pace in four years. So, once again, we see those opposite falling back into a level of confusion, of floundering, of faltering themselves, as they don't know where to go following their election defeat. They fall back into the politics of envy. They deny the verdict of the Australian people a few short weeks ago.