Mr BUCHHOLZ (Wright) (16:24): It is indeed a great pleasure to speak on the MPI on the government's failure to provide an economic plan for Australia. I just want to acknowledge the contribution of the member for Page, who rightly set out the government's plan when he spoke about how it affected his electorate. He spoke about the ongoing rollout of the CCT program. He spoke about the wide-ranging benefits of the free-trade agreement that are flowing today to his electorate, and gave an example of meatworks. He spoke about stronger communities grants. They are the fundamental building blocks of our plan. They are the fundamental building blocks for a plan to move this country forward and built on the principles of growth and jobs. We will continue to make sure that that becomes our mantra—growth and jobs—as we take our plan forward. I draw to the attention of the honourable members in the chamber here today to the front page of today's The Australian paper. A Newspoll had polled on the two leaders, Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten, and the economy. The results were resounding. The Australian people believe that the plan that we have, and that we are taking to the election, is sound, because it has been well-laid out. The evidence from the Newspoll, 58 to 22, was that Australians believe in our plan. They believe in our plan on climate change—51 to 23. They also believe in our national security plan—55 to 21. So, on all measures, the Australian public overwhelmingly support our plan. When you have a plan you need to take the Australian public with you, and there needs to be an element of trust. I talk no other than our historical record when it comes to economic management. When we took government some years back, there was $96 billion worth of debt— Dr Chalmers: You did set a new mark for economic management. Mr BUCHHOLZ: Absolutely, because that is the plan that brought us back to economic prosperity. Back in those days, we had the opportunity to sell down a rather large asset for $45 billion in the way of Telstra. We no longer have those assets, so our path to economic fiscal recovery will be somewhat longer. But we are up for the journey, because we will reduce our spending in the forward estimates. I cannot miss the opportunity to follow the line of commentary that my colleagues have taken when it comes to Labor's past plans and record—that is, when you rush out policy it can be detrimental to the economy. I speak of none other than the old chestnut of the live cattle export debacle. The point I make with reference to live cattle export is that we only had eight per cent exposure to the international market. We talk of an 'enormous' hit. In my electorate of Wright, when those cattle no longer had homes, or markets to be filled in the international space, the cattle prices were immediately impacted in my local selling yards of Beaudesert, Moreton, Silverdale and Kalbar. Labor, today, have spoken with great gusto about their capital gains tax plan. I suggest that, on every level, it fails every test. Influencing 30 per cent of the market to exit will have a detrimental impact in that space. I remind the House of Labor's plan for the mining tax. They rolled out a mining tax—a tax that raised no money. It was ill thought out. I remind the House of Labor's of the pink batts program—they rushed the rollout of that plan. There are many other program debacles because they were rushed and not well thought out. We will make no apology for working carefully, methodically, diligently towards jobs and growth with our new jobs packages. Turning to the current economy and the transition we are making from the mining economy to the service economy, our plan has delivered just on 300,000 new jobs since we have been in office. We have seen the employment rate growing at around 2.6 per cent—higher than the average decade growth rate at 1.6. I want to talk about our plan and to remind the House of free-trade agreements with Korea, Japan and China. This plan is well thought out. As a government, we are the best sort to lead the country.