From PM Turnbull over the weekend brainwashing some Victorian LNP party members:
Now my friends we are at a pivotal moment in our history as we transition from an economy that has been fired up by an unprecedented mining construction boom as we transition to the new economy of the 21st century.
In this election year, there is only one central issue – whether we complete our transition to the new economy or we allow Labor to kill off that opportunity. This transition is one I’ve consistently talked about for years. It is clear that in order to succeed, in order to remain a high wage, generous social welfare net, first world economy, we need to be more innovative, more competitive, more productive.
It is that transition which will deliver our children and grandchildren the great jobs they deserve not just today, but tomorrow and for years to come. This is the most exciting time to be an Australian. The opportunities have indeed never been greater, but success is not guaranteed. That is why we are directing every lever of government to ensuring Australians can make that successful transition. That is what the next election will be all about. Who do the people trust to steer the course to a secure, prosperous and exciting future?
Under my government and our economic leadership we are seeing strong confidence and growth – 3 per cent real GDP growth last year; over 300,000 new jobs created – the highest since 2007, well before the global financial crisis. And the keys to continuing that successful transition are technology, innovation, investment, infrastructure and open markets
So it was in December we launched our Innovation and science Agenda – $1.1 billion committed to bring more Australian ideas to market, incentivise entrepreneurs and invest more in education and research and ensure that our researchers collaborated more with industry and business, so that more of the fruits of that research translated in to jobs and opportunities here at home. As part of that agenda, we are making it easier for start-ups and innovative small businesses to access early stage capital, making it easier for more to access government contracts, making it easier for them to take great ideas to market and to grow.
We launched our Defence White Paper –investing $1.6 billion over 10 years in local industry to build skills and drive competitiveness while harnessing Australian innovation and expertise. And right across the defence White Paper, in the tens of billions of dollars in expenditure to ensure our armed forces have the capabilities to keep us safe in the years to come, we are ensuring in so far as we can that every dollar we spend will be spent in Australia. Because we build our security not simply by giving armed forces, our armed forces the physical capabilities, the physical assets they need, but by building the Australian industries and the Australian technologies that will create them. So both in terms of the capabilities and the investment, an industry that knows we are behind them. The defence White paper is a plan not simply for strategic security but for economic security in the decades before us.
In the face of concerted Opposition from the Labor Party and the union movement we drove the China Free Trade Agreement legislation through Parliament and over 85% of Australia’s goods will enter China duty free as a result. We have continued to invest in water infrastructure to ensure our agricultural exporters get the best out of our Free Trade Agreements. We are supporting record levels of infrastructure through a $50 billion infrastructure package – and Infrastructure Australia’s rolling 15 year plan gives certainty to industry, to promote private investment, and ensures funding is directed to infrastructure that delivers real tandum economic benefits.
Now as part of that plan we are committed to supporting high quality transport projects here in Victoria.
I spoke earlier of our commitment to the East-West Link. Well that will have to wait for the arrival of Premier Matt Guy. In the meantime, the Treasurer and I have written to our counterparts, Andrews and Pallas, to advise them we cannot allow the $1.5 billion previously earmarked for the East-West Link to be left sitting idly in the state’s accounts — or artificially propping up the Labor Governments Budget.
We need to put that money to work. Accordingly, we are prepared to commit the $1.5 billion held by Victoria, plus all interest earned, to these land transport infrastructure projects that have been identified in Infrastructure Australia’s Priority List.
$500 million towards the Monash Freeway upgrade.
$350 million towards the Western Ring Road upgrade;
$220 million towards the Murray Basin freight rail upgrade;All of them requiring a matching contribution from the Victorian Government
We will also fund two sub-packages as part of that $1.5 billion to improve economic development in cities and in regional Victoria: $340 million collectively towards Rural and Regional Highways promoting safety right across the state. $75 million towards smaller Urban projects to relieve congestion.
One of the projects funded will be a $10 million Commonwealth commitment to upgrade The Great Ocean Road
The aim of all of these projects is consistent and follows the direction and the planning of our government, driving economic growth, improving productivity, making it easier for business to move goods around the city and state, enable Victorians to get where they need to go with less disruption and inconvenience
Better transport infrastructure is vital to our economic success.
In the 21st economy, however, human capital is our most critical asset. Enabling the skills, talents and ingenuity of our people defines our future success. That’s why we’re determined to continue to improve workforce participation.
We’re introducing a $3.2 billion child-care subsidy making it easier for parents, particularly those on low incomes to go back to work. This should bring the equivalent of 20, 000 full time workers back into the labour market. We’re investing $322 million in the Transition to Work program to improve the work readiness of young people aged 15-21
In telecommunications we’ve eliminated around 3,000 mobile blackspots nationwide, through round one of our program, with an additional $60 million invested in round 2. We’re investing $7.8 billion in the NBN this financial year, which means by June 2018, three in four Australians will have access to the NBN.
And you know after six years of Labor Government, after so many billions of dollars of waste, after so much fibre-to-the-press release, do you know how many premises in Victoria had been connected to the network in built up areas? Slightly more than 5,000.
Our government has worked hard to turn around that abysmal performance. And I would acknowledge which five of my successors, minister for communications, those of us that have been involved in big projects will attest; the melancholy experience of life is that bad projects generally get worse, generally they get a lot worse. We are turning this very bad project around. We can’t recover all of the money Labor lost but we are improving it in terms of performance and delivery. As of last week, 385,000 premises in Victoria have access to the network and we have increased the number of connections in built-up areas by twenty fold.
We are establishing a new $1 billion Clean Energy Innovation Fund, I want to acknowledge Greg Hunt for his leadership in putting that together. Investing $100 million every year in cutting-edge Australian clean-energy technologies and business to ensure we not only drive jobs and innovation but also play our part responsibly and effectively in reducing carbon emissions.
The Budget we will hand down on May 3 will include changes to our tax system designed to generate jobs and growth; promote investment, innovation and enterprise. But overarching all of this, however, is a fundamental truth — governments at all levels, and all Australians concerned for the future economic security of our country, have to accept the reality that we must live within our means.
This Budget will not be about a fistful of dollars. It will be about prudence, fairness and responsibility to our future generations.
Boy, our PM is one slippery eel. This is the perfect message for the times. The election is indeed all about transitioning the economy.
The problem is the policy is not there to back it up. The list of reforms is woefully thin and also ignores the various retrograde steps taken his government that includes cutting education funding and ruling out all of the major tax reforms directed at increasing Australian competitiveness. There is no mention of the dollar nor of productivity.
Given the PM clearly knows exactly what should be done, his policy platform is all the more cynical for neglecting it.
