E&OE……………………….……………………………………………………………
Our Party went to the last election with a plan to build a strong, prosperous economy and a safe, secure Australia.
Today, my job is to report to you on our progress and to set out our next steps in achieving this goal.
Our plan means backing hard working Australians to get ahead and to fulfil their dreams.
Our plan is not about us; it’s about you.
It’s about you having more control over your pay packet, more control over your bills and more choice over child care, health care and planning for your own retirement.
It’s about keeping you safe: because that’s more important than anything.
From ‘Menzies’ forgotten people’, to the ‘Howard battlers’ and ‘Tony’s tradies’ – we have always been the party that ‘turned on the lights’; that stood ‘for all of us’; and that seeks ‘hope, reward and opportunity’ for everyone.
Today, I can report to you that our plan is working.
Our plan to grow the economy with lower tax, less red tape, more trade, better infrastructure and stronger borders is working.
Since you elected this government, almost 290,000 new jobs have been created.
Economic growth is now stronger than in most developed nations – and stronger than during the last year of the Rudd Gillard Government.
Company registrations are at record highs because people are ready to have a go when they know that government is on their side.
Export volumes are up, as is residential housing construction and retail sales.
And business confidence continues to strengthen.
Our economy and our country are stronger – despite economic headwinds from the end of the mining investment boom and the low iron ore price.
People might have been a little bit uncertain about us; they always are about new governments – but now they know that we are serious: that our country really is under new management and that Australia really is open for business.
The carbon tax is gone – and everyone is benefiting from lower power prices.
The mining tax is gone – and Australia is once again seen as a good place to invest.
New projects worth over a trillion dollars have received environmental approval – and there is no longer a green veto on development.
50,000 pages of regulation have been scrapped – saving businesses and individuals over $2 billion a year – with much more to come in the months ahead.
Free Trade Agreements with China, Japan and Korea are already creating opportunities for tens of thousands of Australian businesses – and new markets mean new jobs.
Projected long-term debt and deficits have been halved because of the difficult, but necessary decisions we made in Joe Hockey’s first Budget.
The largest Commonwealth-funded infrastructure programme in Australian history is now underway.
We are delivering WestConnex, the Pacific Highway duplication, the Bruce Highway upgrade, the North-South spine in Adelaide, the Midland Highway in Tasmania and major roads throughout Western Australia.
Here in Victoria, there is $3 billion in a locked box waiting for a state government that wants to build the East West Link.
The NBN has passed one million premises and Malcolm Turnbull is turning, another Labor disaster into an asset for Australia.
Most importantly, the Budget is finally on a credible path back to surplus – with the deficit projected to fall by half a per cent of GDP every year.
Already, we have made over $50 billion in savings to help repair the Budget – and the last sitting fortnight has been the most productive since the election.
The parliament has passed legislation to make the age pension more sustainable – with more assistance to 170,000 pensioners with modest assets.
The parliament has passed the instant asset write-off for small business.
The parliament has passed changes to renewable energy to make power more affordable and investment more secure.
The parliament has passed changes to fuel excise and the parliament has passed changes to the PBS.
We’re making the hard decisions so we can make the necessary investments in our country’s future.
For the first time, Northern Australia has a plan for its economic development – including for new dams – because we can't make the most of Australia unless we make the most of our Great North.
We aren’t just improving Australia’s economic security – we are improving our national security as well because a nation’s economic security and its national security go hand in hand.
This government has steadfastly met the challenges of the past 22 months.
We’ve been resolute, determined and have kept the faith.
We’ve stopped the boats – a task that Labor said couldn’t be done – and secured our borders for the first time since the Howard Government.
When 39 Australians were shot out of the sky over Ukraine, our police and armed forces brought our dead home from a war zone.
Our people were superb – and I couldn’t be more proud.
Today, I single out one – my deputy and Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop who criss-crossed the world in the name of justice.
Overnight, we saw again horrors in France, Tunisia and Kuwait.
We are meeting the challenge of the Daesh death cult and the Australians it brainwashes.
Abroad, Australian armed forces are working with a worldwide coalition against a group as evil as any in human history.
At home, we have provided more resources and more powers to our security and intelligence agencies – because they need whatever it takes to keep you safe.
This week, we sent a clear message to those Australians who think they can fight overseas with impunity.
Think again.
We will strip Australian citizenship from terrorists who are dual nationals – because terrorists shouldn’t be walking our streets looking to make our citizens their trophies
Our country is confronting the evil of terrorism – and we are also facing up to the evil of domestic violence.
If there is any place that should be a safe haven – it’s the family home.
There are no excuses for domestic violence.
Former Police Commissioner Ken Lay, and Rosie Batty, are heading up our advisory panel and you’ll soon hear more about how we’ll tackle this national scourge.
Let’s start by making domestic violence orders national, so violent men can’t chase their families across the country.
And let’s expect the perpetrators – and not the victims – to be the ones to leave home.
Ken Lay is also helping us to beat the scourge of ice – the most dangerous drug of addiction yet seen.
No one should be lost in a world of fear and fantasy in the best country on earth.
In just a few days’ time, Australia will have completed 24 consecutive years of economic growth – only the Netherlands has had a longer run of economic growth.
But we cannot be a country that lives off yesterday’s achievements; we can’t take growth for granted.
The foundation of the next quarter century of prosperity won’t be bigger government, higher taxes or more debt and deficits.
It will be unleashing the entrepreneurs of our country, particularly our small businesses to have a go.
Since the days of the early settlers, through the gold rushes, the wars and successive waves of immigration, Australians have always been willing to work hard, lend a hand to neighbours, make sacrifices for children and look over the horizon to a better future.
That’s the Australian way and they’re the Australians that we want to back.
Every day we are making further progress.
We are working to re-establish a tough cop on the beat in the construction industry to deliver billions of dollars in productivity benefits.
We’ll soon release the Agriculture White Paper and – again – there’ll be more money for dams because you can’t grow things without water.
We’ll soon respond to the Harper Competition Review and the Murray Review into the Financial System – because we want all parts of our economy growing strongly.
By the end of the year, we’ll release Australia’s first ever 15 year plan for infrastructure to get more bulldozers on the ground and cranes in the sky.
Work is underway eliminating thousands of mobile phone black spots in regional areas.
Thousands of young people have already been in the Green Army in hundreds of projects to clean up our lands and waterways – and there’ll be tens of thousands more.
We want to support hard working Australians – especially parents who want work or who want more work.
Our Budget childcare measures should encourage more than 240,000 families to earn more, including almost 38,000 jobless families.
Low and middle income families using childcare will be $1,500 a year better off even before they earn more.
I have said what we will do – let me also tell you what we won’t do.
We won’t increase taxes on superannuation or increase the restrictions on superannuation because your retirement savings belong to you and not the government.
We won’t change the rules on negative gearing because Australians have made decisions based on the rules as they stand – and the last time a government fiddled with negative gearing it caused a crisis in the rental market.
And we won’t be putting a tax on electricity because there are smarter ways of reducing emissions than whacking everyone with a new carbon tax.
For over seventy years, the Liberal Party has built modern Australia – not on ideology, but on backing hard working Australians – people prepared to have a go.
If you’re a young Australian looking for a good job and working for a deposit on your first home – we’re for you.
If you’re a small business person who wants to employ people – we’re for you.
If you’re a young parent trying to balance work and family – we’re for you.
If you’re a migrant who came the right way to build a better life for your children – we’re for you.
If you want to spend less time stuck in traffic to get to work or to pick up your kids – we’re for you.
If you’re working more to get ahead and to provide the best opportunities for your children – we’re for you.
If you believe superannuation is your money and want certainty in retirement – we’re for you.
If you’re on the land despite the ravages of drought – we’re for you.
I should ask: who’s Labor for these days?
I guess the ‘Killing Season’ answered that: they’re for themselves.
They’re the party that promised to be like John Howard, but weren’t.
They’re the party that promised us they wouldn’t restart the boats, but did.
They’re the party that promised surpluses, but delivered record debt and deficits.
They’re the party that said no carbon tax, but gave us one anyway.
The guilty party has not changed.
Almost two years into this term, they still want a carbon tax; they still have no policies to stop the boats and they’re still addicted to taxes and spending.
The choice is clear.
They’re for boats, we’re for none.
They’re for a carbon tax, we’re for lower tax.
They’re for taxes, we’re for jobs.
They do union bidding.
We stand for all of us.
Now I have to confess, I did sneak a peak at that ABC series The Killing Season.
The one thing that Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard could agree on was: you can’t trust Bill Shorten.
If Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd don’t trust Bill Shorten, why should you?
If the workers of the AWU couldn’t trust Bill Shorten, why should you?
Only the Liberal party and our National Party colleagues can be trusted to build a strong, prosperous economy and a safe, secure Australia.
It’s built by people who believe in our country and who believe that our best days are ahead of us.
When the history books are written, they will recognise my friend, and our Deputy Prime Minister, Warren
Truss as one of the great leaders of this government.
I can report to you that our Coalition is strong. I can report to you that our party organisation, so well led by President Richard Alston is strong.
Our secretariat, led by Brian Loughnane and supported by our state directors, is the most professional political organisation in the country.
But our greatest strength is not our leadership, it’s our membership.
Our party has been built by hundreds of thousands of men and women from all walks of life, from every nook and cranny under the Southern Cross.
We believe in family, in community and that our nation’s greatest achievements come when our people are encouraged to have a go.
We reflect the length and breadth of Australian life: young and old, rich and poor, farmer and suburbanite, indigenous and immigrant, tradies and nurses.
Our party does not demand blind obedience. We respect differences – because discussing them is how we come closer to wisdom.
We are a party that honours our history – it’s the foundation we build on. It’s why we are proud to be the heirs of Menzies, Holt, Gorton, McMahon, Fraser and Howard.
In honouring our history, we remember the good government that Malcolm Fraser led.
He turned on the lights and we’re grateful.
But, today we’re focused on the future.
We’re making our country safer and more prosperous for everyone.
We’re the optimists of Australian life.
We’re yearning and striving to build a better Australia, leaving our children more than we ever hoped for.
That’s our task; that’s our mission and, for our country’s sake, we will succeed.
[ends]