Mr HOWARTH (Petrie—Assistant Minister for Community Housing, Homelessness and Community Services) (15:23): I just wanted to quickly talk about Memories of an Angel. Today I'm wearing the blue and pink ribbon. I don't always wear these, but I think it's important to mention that everyone here in the parliament today is with those people who have suffered pregnancy and infant loss. We know the member for Longman himself mentioned in his maiden speech losing a baby at a very young age, and we think of him and others. A woman in my electorate recently came to see me; she had lost a baby just a week before the cut-off after which she could have had a funeral for that baby, and she was dealing with a lot of grief over that. I just want to say on behalf of the government and the parliament that we are with those people today. The opposition want to talk here about the pressing needs of the nation, and that's great. I want to talk about the pressing needs of the nation today as well. We heard the Treasurer talk about the 1.4 million new jobs created in this country since 2013. That's a pressing need for those people not just in my electorate but right around the country. People want to have work. They don't want to be dependent on handouts from governments—absolutely not. But what do we hear from the opposition leader? In the 10 minutes that he has just rattled on here before us he has been talking down the economy. That's all we hear from those opposite. That's what we hear from the Leader of the Opposition—talking down the economy—when, in fact, our economy is continuing to grow. It's going well. From running a small family business before coming into this place, I know that at times business can be tough. The government is continuing to support business. We want to continue to help them because we know that that's where the jobs are created. Most jobs have been created in the small and medium family sized businesses over the last few years, primarily because of the government's tax cuts—reducing tax from 30 per cent to 25 per cent for industry. But what do we hear from those opposite? As the member for Forrest would know, during the whole last term, they talked down those tax cuts. They said that they were actually going to reintroduce higher taxes on businesses over $2 million. That was their policy right up to a few weeks before the last election, and then all of a sudden they did a dramatic turnaround. In the May election this year, many of those opposite were very arrogant and believed that they would win. They were getting their photos taken and trash talking people on our side and saying, 'Well, we won't see you here next time.' They were very, very arrogant. Well, the people spoke, just a few months ago, in May, and delivered a third term for the coalition government. Why was that? It was partly because of Labor's massive, high-taxing agenda on everyone from pensioners and retirees right through to businesses and people who were renting, who would have seen their rents go up—and it goes on and on. But what have we been doing? In June this year, we saw the Prime Minister reach out to our Pacific neighbours. He visited the Solomon Islands and Fiji and he has recently come back from the USA, where the President there rolled out the welcome mat for him—something he hasn't done for many other neighbours. Our Prime Minister visited Japan in June as well. June was a great month. We all remember Ash Barty winning the French Open. It was a fantastic month. The Prime Minister has been reaching out to our neighbours and saying that we want to work cooperatively with them. In July we saw massive tax cuts that were put through this place for people right across the nation—tax cuts that are putting more dollars in their own pockets. But what did this Leader of the Opposition and members of the Labor Party want to do? They wanted to increase taxes on all Australians right across the board, and they particularly wanted to increase income tax. The opposition leader spoke today about net debt, but didn't speak about the fact that there was no debt at all when John Howard left office and all of a sudden, under the six years of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years, they had billions and billions in deficits. Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting— Mr HOWARTH: Have you heard of something called interest repayments? Mr Brendan O'Connor: Have you heard of something called the global financial crisis? Mr HOWARTH: Interest repayments, son—and it has continued to go up. Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting— Mr HOWARTH: The first time I met this fellow here, Mr Deputy Speaker, was when he came into my electorate, when the former member spoke at a Chamber of Commerce event at North Lake. He wouldn't have had a clue what he was talking about. He wouldn't know the first thing about small business, and here he is— Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Hogan ): The member for Gorton! Mr HOWARTH: I know the pressure is getting to him. He expected to be on this side of the chamber. Well, the fact is that the people spoke and you're in opposition. They rejected your policies. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The assistant minister will address the chair, and the member for Gorton is warned. Mr HOWARTH: Absolutely, through you, Mr Deputy Speaker—if I can get a word in between those opposite. We hear the Leader of the Opposition talking about how Labor are somehow the masters of the economy. The last time the Labor Party ran a surplus in this place was 30 years ago—I was finishing high school—and we continue to see failure from those opposite. There are so many good policies. Let's talk about what the Prime Minister said in August. In August, the Prime Minister secured the agreement of all state and territory leaders to ban the export of waste, plastic, paper, glass and tyres. All of Australia's environment ministers have agreed that we will deal with our own waste here. That's why we've put $167 million into an Australian recycling plan—to grow and strengthen Australia's recycling industry. There's $100 million for the Australian Recycling Investment Fund. And it goes on. There's $20 million to make sure that the recycling of e-waste, mobile phones, tyres and computers is managed here, locally. There's $20 million for a new cooperative research centre to help with plastics. There's $16 million for our Pacific neighbours to help reduce plastics and other waste in our oceans. There's more than $11 million for community action, right across our electorates and to the Labor members as well. If you go across any electorate, there are environmental grants rolling out across this country. There are things like Seabins going into marinas to help collect plastic. There are things like Green Army projects to help replant native plants and vegetation. And that's just on the environment. We know that the coalition has created over 1.4 million new jobs, and part of that has been through free trade agreements. For those people in the gallery: we have a population of 25 million people in this country and under our free trade agreements we've opened up a market to two billion people across the world—80 times the population of Australia. We've got $100 billion going into infrastructure projects around the country, including in my own electorate—for things like the Linkfield Road overpass in Aspley—and $1 billion of that $100 billion to upgrade the Gateway Motorway from Bracken Ridge, at St John Fisher, through to the Pine River. I've got to say: the state government is dragging the chain here; the Palaszczuk government is dragging the chain. When it comes to infrastructure investment, the states are the ones that roll it out—like Queensland's Department of Transport and Main Roads. We're continuing to do a lot. We do need the states to catch up a little bit, particularly on dams and water as well. When it comes to education, we're continuing to roll out increased funding for education. I had to laugh at the member for Hotham's contribution the other day in The Courier Mail on 11 October. This is the member for Hotham: We haven't had a really good conversation in Canberra about why, even though we're spending more money on schools all the time. Our performance is pretty static … Well, thank you, Member for Hotham. For the first time in the last six years, that I can remember, a member of the Labor Party is actually saying we're investing more in schools. In every school in my own electorate and the member for Capricornia's electorate, and right around this country, school funding continues to go up. In relation to universities, in my own electorate, we're also seeing the first university on the Sunshine Coast being built at Petrie. So we're seeing plenty of investment. We know that with health we've recently added medicines to treat lung cancer and leukaemia—all on the PBS—and, in some cases, saving patients up to $100,000 a year. That increase in investment, in education and in health can only be done because of a strong economy, yet those opposite continually want to whack the economy. They want to put more taxes on business. They want to put more taxes on individuals. It's just not acceptable; it's not great for our economy. We can't continue to invest if we bring in new taxes. The coalition government has done a lot. We're focused on the Australian people. The Prime Minister, the Hon. Scott Morrison, is focused on the Australian people. That's why we're here in Canberra. We're here to represent our electorates. We're here to represent the needs of Australians. We're not here to talk down the economy—everything that we'll hear from those opposite in a moment.