Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

We have heard today confirmed what we really already knew: that the global pandemic that has smashed the world economy has not left Australia untouched. Our economic situation is almost as dire as it's ever been, thanks to this global pandemic which has shut down international travel and called for the need for serious restrictions on Australian businesses. Of course that is going to lead to significant economic decline. Unfortunately, very, very many people have lost their jobs in the last few months in this country because of the pandemic.

All sides of politics were calling for levels of restrictions—in fact the calls for restrictions and lockdowns were probably louder coming from the other side of the chamber. It seems to me today that those making complaints about the economic situation don't seem to be referring back to the fact that they were very loud in calling for a lockdown, calling for restrictions to be placed on Australian businesses and calling for restaurants to close and tourism to shut down. Well, guys, it's pretty clear that when you shut down businesses and you make people lock down in their own homes there are going to be people who lose their jobs. There are going to be businesses that go out the back door. Unfortunately, that's been the consequence of what we've had to do.

It makes it important that we work hard. Today's figures show clearly it's very important that we work hard and cooperatively across the whole of Australia to reopen our economies, because the best way of getting people back into a job is to get back to an open economy as soon as we can. I very much hope that later this week the Premiers drop all this ridiculous political state of origin they seem to be playing and work together to get those jobs back. That's the most desperate thing we need.

In the long-term, how are we going to create jobs in this country? How are we going to rekindle our labour markets and for people to get back into work? It's pretty clear it's going to have to come through the private sector—that's where jobs have been lost. There haven't been jobs lost in the public sector. There's only a limited number that the public sector can employ at any one time. It's going to have to come from providing confidence to private businesses in this country to reinvest in the economy, to re-employ people to grow their businesses. We're going to need the confidence in businesses to make those hiring decisions.

How are we going to do that? To give businesses confidence, you make it easier for them to do business. It's not rocket science. If you make it easier for people to do business, they will do more business and they will employ more people, and we will be able to get back on our feet sooner rather than later. It's a pretty simple recipe. We should be focusing on things like lowering taxes. We should be focusing on getting rid of red tape on businesses so they can set up businesses and employ people. We should be investing in infrastructure that can help grow our economy and provide returns.

On every one of those fronts the Australian Labor Party in the last few years has been an absolute barrier to achieving those aims and ends. So let's just remind people of the history of the past few years and of what the Australian government wanted to do pre the coronavirus. We wanted to lower taxes. We wanted to lower company taxes. We wanted to lower personal income taxes, and the Labor Party has opposed various tax measures through the last few years. In fact, they opposed the company tax measures completely. They didn't want to put lower taxes on businesses.

Now they come to this place and say we should create jobs. Well, if we had lower taxes we'd be in a much better position to create jobs, but the Labor Party opposed that. And on personal income taxes they've opposed various measures that were put in place to lower personal income taxes as well. Maybe we'll see the Labor Party reconsider its position on taxes, but I didn't hear any of that in the previous contribution. I didn't hear one mention of the word 'tax'. If you're not going to lower taxes, how are you going to create jobs?

The other way we could make business easier in this country is to reduce red tape—get rid of regulation—another thing I didn't hear from Senator Urquhart. Is the Australian Labor Party now going to support efforts to take regulation off the backs of Australian businesses and unlock potential and hope for the Australian economy? Again, over the past few years, the Australian Labor Party has consistently opposed these attempts in this place. Right now there's a test for the Australian Labor Party on the Notice Paper. We want to make it easier for projects to be approved in this country. We want to make it simpler and easier for those who want to invest in this country to achieve approval under our environmental laws, here in Canberra and at the state level.

In fact, they're very similar measures to the ones we put in place after the 2013 election. We were elected on a platform to establish a one-stop shop so that environmental approvals in this country could be done at just one level without the duplication and, potentially, delay that occurs for people who just want to create jobs in this nation. We were elected with that mandate. And what did the Australian Labor Party do after the 2013 election? They teamed up with their mates in the Greens—it's basically a Greens-Labor party in this place now; they're basically in coalition with each other. The Greens-Labor party joined together to oppose that reduction in regulation, and we have seen environmental approval times blow out over the past five years. The Productivity Commission report released earlier this year, right after the coronavirus started, showed it was taking around two years to get approval for a major project, and it's now over three years; it's now over 1,000 days to get something approved.

So, we're going to come back and try to get that reduction in red tape. I haven't heard yet what the Australian Labor Party's position on that is. I don't believe they've completely rejected it yet. The Labor Party comes in with matters of public importance on the Notice Paper, saying they want to create jobs and they want a jobs plan. Well, here you go, guys; here's a plan. Here's a plan to cut red tape, decrease the time it takes to get things approved and create jobs. Are you going to agree to it? We don't know yet.

In the past couple of weeks the Labor Party's also opposed investments in infrastructure. We saw this week the Labor Party stand up and try to stop investments in coal fired power here in this country—another election commitment that was made by the federal government last year, and the Labor Party are trying to knock off that investment that's been put forward by a traditional owner company in North Queensland. The Labor Party are again teaming up with their mates in the Greens and trying to knock that off. The Labor Party's also been opposed to dams being built in this country. That's a real key thing we can do as a nation to create jobs: unlock our water resources, invest in our agricultural capacity and create jobs in farming. Again, that's something the Labor Party has been opposed to.

The one thing I heard from Senator Urquhart that I did agree with is, 'Let's get back to manufacturing.' It was a brief mention—very brief—about having a plan for manufacturing. We do need that; we desperately need that. But that is not going to happen unless we reduce energy prices, so we need the Australian Labor Party to listen to Mr Fitzgibbon on their side, listen to those who have common sense about energy, because they're divided over things like coal and gas. If we're not going to use our natural resources, like coal and gas, we will not get back to making things. The US is getting back to making things; they're doing it. They're bringing jobs back to the United States. How are they doing it? They're using their natural resources. They're unlocking their gas resources in the Permian Basin in Texas, and that is driving their country ahead. But the Labor Party hasn't quite worked out yet whether they're going to support that plan to get manufacturing going again.

I've been working with my Nationals colleagues as well to do more to rekindle that manufacturing industry. A number of us think we should do more. We should look to take greater countervailing action against countries that abuse the international trading system, including the People's Republic of China, who are currently subsidising the export of pesticides from their country. We need to look into that so that we save the New Farm factory in Melbourne. We should be looking to set up a development bank again in this country, to help support manufacturing industries. And we should be looking to provide investment allowances and lower taxes for those who expend and invest in manufacturing in this country. Those are all forward-thinking things that we should be looking at, and I hope the Australian Labor Party brings forward that sort of practical idea and leaves their partnership with the Greens at the door. In all I heard there before in terms of what they think should be done, the only cogent thing I heard from Senator Urquhart in her contribution was that we need to keep JobKeeper going.

The support we've provided through JobKeeper has been absolutely essential but is not a long-term plan for jobs. It cannot be sustained for much longer at the cost of roughly $10 billion a month in recent months. It is not a plan to keep jobs on life support forever. You cannot keep someone on life support forever. We need to look beyond that and we need the Labor Party to look seriously at this. Are the Australian people going to believe that the Labor Party, who are in lock step with the Labor Environment Activist Network, founded by Senator McAllister over there, are going to team up with us to lower taxes, lower regulation and invest in nation-building infrastructure like dams? I don't believe it and I don't think the Australian people believe it either.