E&OE...
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The trillion dollar Australian economy has been growing and improving for more than a decade, due in no small measure to my Government's careful economic management.
We have delivered surplus Budgets, paid off Labor's $96 billion debt and introduced major reforms to keep the economy strong.
A strong economy means that we can afford to cut taxes, to spend billions of dollars on major national projects like rescuing the Murray-Darling Basin and to provide benefits for families and importantly, create jobs; and this has meant that unemployment is now at a 32 year low.
While my Government's reforms have delivered much of the prosperity we now enjoy, we cannot become complacent. We must maintain the momentum of economic reform in order to ensure that the economy continues to grow.
The Labor Party has falsely claimed that the Australian economy can effectively run on auto pilot, that in some way it's all due to forces beyond the control or influence of governments and as a result they have no blueprint to ensure future economic prosperity for Australia.
They would have people believe that on economic management there is really no difference between the Liberal-National Coalition and the Labor Party. Nothing could be further from the truth. From taxation reform to the waterfront and to the workplace, Labor has said no to every major reform put forward by this government.
Labor's workplace alternative would bring back the nightmare of unfair dismissal laws for small business. One million Australian Workplace Agreements would be at threat if the Labor Party comes to office. My visit to Western Australia last week reminded me that more than 200,000 employees of that state are employed under AWAs. The prosperity and stable future of many of those would be put at risk by Labor's commitment, driven by union influence, to get rid of Australian Workplace Agreements.
Labor might try to sneak by on the economy with bland generalisations that there is really no difference between the two sides of politics, but the facts tell us otherwise. Labor fought the reforms of the past 10 years which have given us much of the prosperity we now enjoy and Labor in government would undo much of the good work of the past decade and put our prosperity at risk.
[ends]
Listen to this Speech (MP3 - 2.34Mb - 153secs)