Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Hansard source

Let me inform the Senate that, in their great wisdom, the Australian people actually chose to avoid the greatest risk that the Australian economy was facing earlier this year, by voting for the re-election of the Liberal-National government. The Australian people knew that the alternative agenda that was being put forward—a tax-and-spend agenda, which the Labor Party is still pushing today—would have made our economy weaker and would have led to higher unemployment and lower wages over time. They knew that our plan of lower taxes, of an ambitious free trade agenda to help our exporting businesses get access to key markets around the world, of bringing electricity prices down and, indeed, of funding a $100 billion record infrastructure investment pipeline, was the right way for Australia to go in the context of the global economic headwinds and the downside risks in the domestic economy that we knew were coming. (Time expired)