Mr BURKE (Watson—Minister for the Arts, Minister for Home Affairs, Minister for Cyber Security, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship and Leader of the House) (15:27): Every day, the MPI comes around, and I get asked which frontbencher will I will flick it across to. I saw the one today, and I'd just refused to share. I refused to share, because of what the shadow Treasurer has put forward. Here are the words: the government's addiction to higher taxes and higher spending. His objection, if you look at what they've been standing for, is because they want taxes to be even higher and spending to be even higher. That is exactly what they have just spent and gone completely to the Australian people on. They managed, and the now shadow Treasurer managed, the most expensive election commitment to be taken to any election in the history of Federation. Even when he quibbles with the numbers and picks his preferred lower figure, it is still the most expensive election commitment that has ever been taken to a federal election. They managed to be offering cuts. We know all the things they oppose. They oppose free TAFE, free medicines and urgent care clinics. They wanted to sack workers left, right and centre. We know all the things they oppose, and, even with their long list of cuts, they still managed to increase debt. They still managed to go to the election delivering increased debt. At the same time, and full credit for their honesty, they were the first opposition to actually go to an election promising that people should pay more income tax. He went through a whole lot of different tax areas that he wanted to talk about in his speech there. He didn't say a word about income tax, did he? He did not say a word about income tax. Every single Australian taxpayer was being told that, if they were on this side of the House, income tax was going to be more, whereas the government's position was really simple: people should earn more and keep more of what they earn. Those opposite opposed both. They opposed people earning more, and they opposed people keeping more of what they earn. Let's go through the economic stats. One of the most concerning things he just said is that Australia is becoming too reliant on other countries. That was one of his comments. He could only be referring to the fact that, under them, their concept of being less reliant on other countries was to shut down trade. So in country after country we were losing access to trade, which meant we were losing access to business, which meant we were losing Australian jobs. And yet they choose that as the better path. We are proud of the fact that there are more jobs in Australia because we've improved trade. We are proud of the fact that people have more job security because we've improved trade. We are proud of the fact that people are earning more and have more job security. Mr Ted O'Brien interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Claydon ): Order, member for Fairfax! Mr BURKE: Go through each of the economic stats—whether it be inflation, wages, jobs, business investment, productivity or the budget—and look at the comparison between their record and the record of this government. On inflation, in the final figures, the March quarter figures, when they were last in office inflation had a '6' in front of it. Mr Ted O'Brien interjecting — The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Fairfax, you can leave the chamber if you cannot hold your tongue. Mr BURKE: Not only was it their view that that was proper management of the economy; they also had a passionate view that wages should not keep up with that number. When our Prime Minister said, 'Absolutely,' to people's pay being able to keep up with what was happening with inflation, they were opposed to that. They never saw a pay cut they didn't want to grab. They never found a way of increasing wages that they weren't willing to oppose. Real wages were going backwards by 3.4 per cent. There were five consecutive quarters where real wages were falling. When we came to office, we changed the laws for workers. We changed the approach the government took to the Fair Work Commission. What did that mean? We were told by them when we started to do that, 'Oh, no, that will cause inflation to go up.' The then shadow Treasurer actually opposed our workplace relations reforms on the basis that they would increase wages. That is what he said. When he was challenged, he said, 'I'm only saying that, if you increase wages, you are going to increase prices as well.' Well, what happened? As real wages went up, inflation fell. As a result of that, where they had five quarters leading up to the 2022 election where wages went backwards, Australia has now seen real wages grow for the last six consecutive quarters. They talk about the number of jobs. Over 1.1 million jobs have been created. The average unemployment rate under this government has been the lowest of any government in half a century. They then want to go to business investment. Annual business investment under them fell by an average of 1.3 per cent per year for their nine years in office. What's happened in our time in office? It hasn't been falling by an average of 1.3 per cent a year. It's been growing by an average of 4.4 per cent per year, hitting a record high last financial year. They oversaw the worst decade in productivity growth in 60 years, whereas we are working to restore growth. That's why you deliver free TAFE—because, if you have a skilled workforce, you have a more productive workforce. That's why you get away from the incentives that made people baulk at study through student debt. If you know that you have the government backing you on education, you invest in your own skills as well, just like the government is investing in a future made in Australia. But, of all things, something that the shadow Treasurer really shouldn't try to talk about is debt and deficit. The way to deal with debt and deficit is to have surplus budgets. That's the way to deal with it. We are getting very close to the point where we will have people voting in Australian elections who have never seen the coalition deliver a surplus budget in their lifetimes. Have they been able to claim they were going to do it? Yes. They did the merchandise. They had the 'back in black'. Their only support for Australian live music ever was, much to the annoyance of AC/DC, to try to co-opt the song. Yet how many budgets did they deliver? How many surplus budgets? How many times, when the final figures came in, was the budget in surplus? How many times? How many times from them? And yet we have had the first back-to-back surplus in almost two decades. Debt is $177 billion lower than what had been forecast at the election. When you do that, you save the nation around $60 billion in interest costs over the decade. We've had from them, over this last fortnight, a whole series of images where they want to look backward. In terms of looking backward, in fairness, the member for Fairfax doesn't win; I suspect the member for Longman has won that prize with the speech he gave in the Federation Chamber earlier this week. But this government is proud of the fact that we will back workers, back Australian industry and back Australian jobs. One of our proudest boasts, I have to say, is the fact that our laws have done exactly what we said they would do, and the gender pay gap is at the lowest it's been since they started collecting the record. Again, that is a contribution to productivity. That is a huge contribution to productivity. But every measure we've brought in to be able to do that has been opposed by those opposite—right through! The excuses are always the same. They say that it will drive up inflation; well, inflation is lower than it was under them, markedly lower. Or they'll say that it will boost inflation—wrong. They say it will cause a collapse in jobs—wrong. Their other classic one is to say that it would lead to more industrial disputes. Fewer days have been lost to industrial disputes now, under this government, than in the final quarter under them. Under every metric, people are earning more and keeping more of what they earn. They have more secure employment and a more productive economy because those on the other side have not been in charge of any of the decisions. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Before I give the call to the member for Flinders, I'd just like to say that the sledging from frontbenchers was really unhelpful throughout that debate, so let's try and be courteous so that the member for Flinders can be heard, and I'd like the same for the next speaker as well.