Mr FRYDENBERG (Kooyong—The Treasurer) (14:18): I thank the member for Moore for his question. He knows about the importance of a strong economy, with 70,000 taxpayers in the electorate of Moore benefiting from tax cuts that this side of the parliament supported and that those opposite called offensive and reckless. Let's remind ourselves about the fiscal and financial mess that we inherited from the Labor Party. In the Labor Party's last budget there was a budget deficit of $48½ billion, around three per cent of GDP. In Labor's last year in office 65,000 small businesses closed their doors, unemployment was at 5.7 per cent and the four budget surpluses that chairman Swan promised the Australian people never eventuated, even though the Labor Party had an iron ore price of $185 a tonne, which is more than double of what it is today. Since we've come to government, we've helped create more than 1.4 million new jobs. We've got employment growth at 2.6 per cent. We've helped maintain our AAA credit rating. The proportion of working age Australians who are on welfare is at the lowest level of any government in 30 years. The real rate of spending growth of the government is now the lowest of any government in 50 years. And we are bringing the budget back into surplus for the first time in 12 years. I'm asked: are there any alternative approaches? We know that the Labor Party went to the Australian people at the last election with $387 billion of higher taxes. That would have taken the tax-to-GDP ratio to 25.9 per cent—the highest tax-to-GDP ratio of any government in Australia's history. That is what the Labor Party promised the Australian people. They had a 45 per cent emissions target, which they couldn't understand, which they didn't explain to the Australian people and which they refused to cost at the last election. We know that the Labor Party have a hereditary addiction, passed down from chairman Swan to the member for Rankin, to tax and spend. We know that the Labor Party promised surpluses but never delivered them. We know on this side of the House that we stand for more jobs, for lower taxes and for paying back Labor's debt.