Ted, I want to thank you for being on our team.
I want to thank all of the great team that I have, that you – the LNP – have in Canberra, led by our remarkable Deputy Prime Minister, Warren Truss.
And isn't it fantastic that the newest member of our team in Canberra is Joanna Lindgren, a great niece of Neville Bonner.
And isn't it significant that we now have a third Indigenous member of our national Parliament and two of them represent our Coalition. It just goes to show – this is a Coalition for everyone.
Now, I presume you were all watching television on Wednesday night? Weren't the Ashes fantastic – it was just great – really, really good. It's a great start. Let's hope it can be a good finish. Actually, when I spoke at this gathering 12 months ago I was told not to mention the football – and that's advice I propose to take again!
I want to start these observations by saying a very big heartfelt thank you to the members of the LNP, and if I may say through you, to our membership right across the country: thank you.
None of us could be Members of Parliament, none of us could be Ministers in Governments, none of us could lead a Government, but for you. You are out there – week-in, week-out; month-in, month-out; year-in, year-out; election-in, election-out – you are there doing the hard yards so that your representatives can sit in the Parliament and Australia can have better government.
We owe it all, though, to you – and we don't thank you enough, but I thank you today for everything you do for us and I thank you for everything you do for our country. Our country needs you, and sometime within the next 15 months we will have to do it again, but I am absolutely confident that with your help we can continue to give Australia the good government that Australia needs, and that the Australian people deserve.
I know that sometimes we test your faith. I know we test your faith sometimes, because we are all too human, but I thank you for believing in us. I thank you for sustaining us.
I want to particularly thank you for all the support you gave to my friend and your former premier, Campbell Newman.
And I want to say this: the longer the Palaszczuk Government lasts, the better the Campbell Newman Government will look.
I also want to say thank you and good luck to Lawrence Springborg, who should be the next premier of Queensland.
I want to say thank you to Bruce McIver, your President, and for the whole of the Queensland LNP executive team. Bruce, you are a tower of strength in this great state.
I also want to say thank you to Brad Henderson. I know the last campaign was a terrible disappointment, but you have run some magnificent campaigns and I hope you might have one more in you. I know that's a vexed family question, but my hope is that you might have one more in you!
My job today is to report to you on how your Federal Government is going and I said to you before the last federal election that we had a clear mission: we would stop the boats, we would scrap the carbon tax, we would build the roads of the 21st century, and we would get the budget back under control.
That's what we said we would do, and that is exactly what we have done. The carbon tax is gone, the boats have been stopped, the roads are building and thank God the budget is coming back under control.
It hasn't been easy, but it has been necessary and I want to assure you, I want to assure Liberals and Nationals right around Australia, I want to assure every citizen of this great country that every day your Government is striving to build a strong and prosperous economy and every day your Government is striving to produce a safe and secure Australia.
That is what you need. That is what you deserve. That is what you have a right to expect of your Government and that, I believe, is exactly what we are doing.
I said on election night, back in September of 2013, that Australia was under new management and it was once more open for business. I did that for a very good reason. You see, we understand in a way that no other political movement does, that you cannot have strong and cohesive communities without strong economies to sustain them, and you cannot have strong economies without profitable private businesses.
That's what we understand.
We understand that you cannot have a job without a business to employ you. And you cannot keep your job if that business doesn't continue to make a profit. We get this. We understand this, and, frankly, we are the only political movement in our country right now that does.
So, we scrapped the carbon tax – which was a useless and unnecessary burden on business, and a useless and unnecessary burden on everyone, and every Australian household is better off to the tune of some $550 a year.
We scrapped the mining tax – and that big flashing red light over investment in Australia has gone.
We have scrapped some 50,000 pages of useless and redundant regulations and that is only a start, because there are a lot more useless and redundant regulations that must go.
I know you'll be pleased to know that the Environment Minister, Greg Hunt, has provided environmental approvals for $1 trillion worth of new projects. These are projects which will help to build the jobs and the prosperity of the future. But Greg Hunt, he's done a remarkable job. Not only has he provided environmental approvals for $1 trillion worth of new projects, he's also taken the Great Barrier Reef off the endangered list.
This, if I may say so, is an important, indeed, an historic achievement.
You all know as Queenslanders how much you care for the Great Barrier Reef. You appreciate that, yes, this is a world asset, this is a national asset, but it's also your asset and you want to look after it and water quality in the reef is getting better all the time, and thanks to the efforts of this Government it will just get better and better in the years and decades to come.
Thanks to the remarkable work of this Government, we now have three Free Trade Agreements – three Free Trade Agreements that the Howard Government started and the Abbott Government finished – and I have got to say, they floundered and were going nowhere fast in the intervening period, but thanks to the three Free Trade Agreements that this Government has finalised, some 95 per cent of our exports to 60 per cent of our export markets to China, to Japan, and to Korea, will enter duty free.
You know, a lot of Governments have talked about putting cranes in the sky and putting bulldozers on the ground, but this Government is actually delivering.
The biggest Commonwealth-funded infrastructure programme in our history – some $7 billion of Commonwealth spending to flood-proof the Bruce Highway, some billion dollars to ensure that the Gateway Motorway upgrade goes ahead; the Toowoomba Range Crossing – all of these things are happening because this is a Government which believes in building things; this is a Government which believes in getting things done.
And yes, we have had to make some tough decisions.
Last year, we had to bring in a budget for saving. It was a difficult budget. You all know that. You probably had to stand in the street and argue with your neighbour to defend what the Government did last year. But we had to get that message out to our people that you have got to live within your means.
And every time we see something going on in other countries, which haven't lived within their means, every time we see problems overseas, let us be grateful that at least in this country now there is a Government which is determined that we will live within our means, because the only way we can guarantee prosperity for our children and our grandchildren is to ensure that we do not put them in debt and this Government will never do that.
But because last year we were prepared to make some very difficult decisions, because we were prepared to do the hard yards last year, this year, we were able to bring in a budget for confidence.
Last year it was a budget for savings, this year a budget for confidence and I am so proud, and I know my colleagues are so proud that for the first time in living memory, we have a Government which doesn't just talk about doing the right thing by small business, but which actually delivers for small business.
Small business tax cuts started on 1 July, and one of the reasons why our shops and our warehouses have been so crowded over the last few weeks is because something like two million businesses right around Australia, including a half a million businesses here in Queensland, have been eligible to take advantage of the instant asset write-off.
Anything under $20,000 that small business buys can be written off against tax and you can do it again and again and again and again. It's not one off. Every item under $20,000 can be written off against your tax.
But we aren't stopping there. We aren’t resting on our laurels. Every day we are determined to make the life of our people easier, every day we are determined to make it easier for small business in particular to invest in their staff, in their customers, in their business.
We released the Northern Australia White Paper just a couple of weeks ago and I want to thank Senator Ian Macdonald in particular for the work he's done on the Northern Australia White Paper.
The Northern Australia White Paper is not just about Northern Australia, because if we want our country to flourish, our great north must flourish. If we want our country to reach its full potential, Northern Australia must reach its full potential, too.
I'm pleased that under this White Paper there is $700 million more for roads.
I'm delighted that under this White Paper there is a $5 billion concessional loan fund for economic infrastructure north of the Tropic of Capricorn.
I'm pleased that there are visa changes to ensure that it is easier for people to live in Northern Australia and make a home in Northern Australia and to build a life in Northern Australia.
I'm pleased about this, because it's not just good for Northern Australia, it's good for all of us.
Then, of course, last week, we had the Agriculture White Paper, and I want to thank Barnaby Joyce for the work that he did, the extraordinary work and the insights that he brought. Yes, and he's a kind of an ex-Queenslander, I understand! He was particularly conflicted on Wednesday night, but anyway. What, do you think some atavistic loyalty remains?!
But we built on the budget benefits for small business with instant asset write-off extensions. The water infrastructure – the on-farm water infrastructure – can be instantly depreciated. The on-farm fodder infrastructure can be depreciated over three years. And all those new fences that were only repairs, now can be treated honestly for the first time. You put a fence on a farm and you can write it off straightaway. So, we are making honest farmers of the farmers of our country!
But one of the things that I'm most proud of is that at long last we are breaking the dam-phobia which has afflicted our polity for far too long.
In the Northern Australia White Paper and in the Agriculture White Paper, there is a $500 million fund to ensure that we get the water storages that we need, because if you want to grow things, you've got to have water and if we want our farming sector to expand and flourish, if we want our north to expand and flourish, we have got to have water. It is absolutely critical to the economic success of our country, and I look forward, thanks to the water fund that we have created, I look forward to the Ord Stage 3 going ahead, I look forward to the Nullinga Dam behind Cairns happening. I really do look forward to the water storages of our country actually happening for the first time in 30 years.
There is always more work to be done.
You know there is a tax reform white paper now well under way. I want to assure you that as far as this Government is concerned, what we want is lower, simpler, fairer taxes. We aren't on about increasing taxes. We aren't on about dreaming up new taxes. We are on about making taxes lower, simpler and fairer.
While I'm on that subject, I want to tell you that one thing we will not do is increase tax on super.
Your hard-earned savings – yes, they might be tax advantaged – but your hard-earned savings, they belong to you. They aren't a piggy bank for government to raid whenever it's in trouble and this is one of the key differences between us and our political opponents right now.
Another thing that we are not going to do, we are not going to fiddle with negative gearing because the last time a Labor government fiddled with negative gearing it destroyed the rental market in most of our major cities.
Another thing that we are never going to do is come back and hit you with a great big jobs-destroying carbon tax, which, of course, is the first thing that any re-elected Labor government might do and why it's so important that this Government be returned whenever the next election is held.
I know some of you have been taking a little bit of time out of celebrating Queensland's State of Origin win to watch things that have been happening in a certain Royal Commission over the last little while.
I'm not going to offer a running commentary on Royal Commissions. I'm not going to offer character assessments of our opponents, but while the Labor Party is thinking about itself, while the Labor Party is worried about its political success, this Government, this political movement, is worried about what will work and what will help the people of Australia.
And what will best help the people of Australia is restoring honesty and good governance to the trade union movement and that's why we have got a Bill before the Senate – the Registered Organisations Commission Bill – to bring to the union movement the same high standards of governance which have always been expected and required of companies. That's what we want to do – the same standards of integrity, of selflessness, the same standards of honesty – that's what we expect of companies and of union officials alike and that's what we are determined to deliver.
We have also got legislation before the Parliament to ensure that there is a strong, tough, cop on the beat in the construction industry. We need the Australian Building and Construction Commission back, and if the Labor Party wants to demonstrate that it has learnt the lessons of the rorts, rackets and rip-offs now being exposed by this Royal Commission, it will pass this legislation – it will pass this legislation.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is a great city in a great state, in a great country. You know, one of the privileges of being a Member of Parliament, one of the privileges of being your Prime Minister, is to see Australians in all the circumstances in which we live.
We have seen Australians in bad times, and in good.
Today, I just want to close these observations by telling you of the experience that Wyatt Roy and Teresa Gambaro and I have just had at River City Labs. River City Labs is a place where the smartest and the bravest and the most adventurous young entrepreneurs come together to talk about ideas, to challenge each other, to share ideas, to work out what they think can actually succeed, and then to make it happen.
And I can tell you, exciting though it was to watch that contest on the football field during the week, it's in places like River City Labs that the battle for our future is being won. That is where the future of our country is being secured, by our best and our brightest coming together to test each other, to stretch each other and to make it happen – and I want to say how proud I am to see that so many good things are happening in this great state of Queensland.
That is what we want.
We want to see a country which really does grasp its potential.
We want to see a country where each of us really can be our best selves.
That is what this Government, your Government, is striving for every day: to challenge each of us, to empower each of us, to encourage each of us, to be everything that we can be and to be the very best that we can be.
That is the mission of this Government: to help every single Australian to be the very best that he or she could be.
I am so proud to have the privilege of leading this nation.
I am so grateful for the support you give me every single day.
Thank you so much.
[ends]