Ralph Babet (Victoria, United Australia Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian public should be wary when the government boasts about low unemployment. The reality is a large percentage of new jobs that have been created over the past two years have been created in the government funded sector, by some accounts around 87 per cent. To put it bluntly, the Australian economy is on public sector life support. This is typical of Labor governments unfortunately. They imagine that the public sector creates wealth, when we all know that the public sector only takes away wealth. To claim you are building Australia's future when you are adding jobs to the public sector is like you live in la-la land. Wealth is multiplied by limiting the size of government, not by making it bigger. A country is built by cutting red tape, not by employing more regulators. Prosperity is created by helping business, not by expanding the number of taxpayer funded jobs. To support this ever-growing public sector, the government must of course continually ramp up taxes. So, of course, now we have a private sector struggling under the weight of never-ending regulations, taxes, levies, fees et cetera, propping up an expanding public sector. This government claim to be building Australia when it is in fact smothering Australia. You build Australia by empowering businesses, entrepreneurs, manufacturers et cetera. Government should be focused on doing whatever it takes to free up the private sector to dream, to create and to build. So we must reduce the size and the power of government at all levels. It's too big. It is too unwieldy. That is how you build Australia's future.