Mr LAMING (Bowman) (15:50): It seems a little ironic, when solid economic news is coming out, that we are having a debate about whether there is a plan or not. I think that most small businesses out there would be horrified at the nature of a Labor government coming up with a plan. What small businesses out there want is government out of their lives, not another plan. They want government out of their lives so that they can employ. They want government out of their lives so that they can get on with business. What they want is a solid and consistent approach to business and not to watch the surpluses accrued by responsible coalition governments frittered away like we saw over the last six years—and that is the great fear. We are not talking about plans; we are talking about a genuine fear of a return of a rat with a gold tooth saying he has a plan. That is not what they want. They do not want plans. What they want is confidence to employ. Let's accept it: every developed economy has an issue with underemployment and under-utilisation—which is unemployment and underemployment added together. But we continue to defy market expectations. That is the big point. When you compare us to the US or to Canada, we are doing exceptionally well. In fact, reported growth rates are double those of the northern American economies. Now, that is not by accident. America and Canada are resource-based economies facing exactly the same challenges that we are, transitioning to a broader-based approach. When you do that you have frictional challenges, with people moving out of where we had high terms of trade and looking for new work. It, by definition, creates high levels of underemployment as people find first small levels and then, later, greater levels of employment. That is a transition. It is precisely what we are doing, but we are doing it better than every other OECD nation. It is a gold star for Australia. Let's not get that wrong. What I love about the opposition is when they are in a tight corner. They know that when they go home from Canberra and back to their electorate office there will be one big burly dude sitting in their waiting room, with a CFMEU hi-vis vest on and 'WTF' on their forehead, saying: 'Explain what happened in Canberra. What went wrong? What went so terribly wrong?' They will be able to say: 'Oh no, we threw a really big smelly cat on the table. We wasted the time of that parliament for at least an hour saying the economy wasn't being run well. Then we got onto gun laws. To be honest, just ignore the fact that we're not your operator anymore.' Opposition members interjecting— Mr LAMING: When those over there meet their maker—the big burly dude, with the fluro jacket on and with halitosis—on this Friday, in their electorate offices, they can say to that individual: 'I'm really sorry. You can no longer wreak your havoc on the building site, but we did debate the economy for an hour. Did you hear my speech?' I mean, seriously! We have had unemployment at record lows for the last three years. We have had growth in full-time employment for 11 of the last 18 months—and then we have the leader of this debate from the other side come in here and report a 40,000 drop in full-time employment. He took the July figure and ignored the September figure, when it went up. That is right: just wherever it is convenient. You see this opposition conveniently redefining the debate wherever it can. It was like that with Medicare yesterday. I think the member for Oxley was there for that debate. It is so inconvenient that Medicare bulk-billing rates keep going up in these Labor electorates—so let's redefine bulk-billing rates and not ask how many services are being delivered. Let's ask how many people are getting the services—a figure that has never been calculated in the history of humanity. But they are going to change the figures to suit their own convenience, because bulk-billing rates have gone up. There has never been a better friend of bulk-billing than the coalition government. There has never been a better friend of full-time employment than the coalition government. Ask anyone out there! Don't believe me. Don't believe that mob over there. Talk to the people doing the employing, because every night they go to bed praying that this government stays in government for another six years to give them some certainty. Let's wind the time back a bit. It was back in 2008 when this lot thought they knew everything, didn't they? There was $80 billion in the coffers and it was a case of: let's just let it rip and spend the lot and see what happens. What they know over there is that, ultimately, the only people who pay off Labor debt are Liberal voters. So it never really matters, does it? They leave it as low as they can go, as long as they do not hurt the credit rating, and then they let the other guys clean it up. It is like the fire and rescue guys turning up to a burning house when the rogue tenants have escaped—that is that lot over there. And then they are getting in our way when we are trying to get the economy back under control. Opposition members interjecting— Mr LAMING: They are running interference at every step, making it harder to employ and making it harder to provide incentives. What are these corporate tax cuts for billionaires, again? That is 2024, isn't it? We have businesses with $1 million turnover and $2 million turnover thanking this side of politics that we are getting the tax cuts now so that there is a chance for there to be more employment for small business. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Coulton ): Before I call the member for Gellibrand, the volume is increasing. We will have the cone of silence, thank you, and continue. I call the member for Gellibrand.