E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP
BRISBANE
WEDNESDAY, 8 JUNE 2016
SUBJECT/S: Labor’s comprehensive plan for Australia’s economy; Costings; CFA; Malcolm Turnbull’s refusal to talk to Queensland voters.
BILL SHORTEN, LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Good morning everybody. Today, I've outlined Labor's priorities and the principle by which we would govern. And we've given a very clear commitment today that we will make the proper investments so that Australia can have a great next 10 years but we will also make sure that we are not a big-spending Government. In the course of this election, we're outlining our central policy propositions, our policies which are costed, the policies which will be core to the way we administer the Labor Government, and by the second of July, and indeed well before the second of July, we will have put out our full Labor program for government, but well before the election so that Australians can have a genuine choice and see what a Labor Government would do.
In outlining our program before the election, let me again repeat what I said in the speech this morning. The program we outline to Australians, our policy priorities, education, health, climate change, fair taxation, nation-building infrastructure, a fair go all around. In outlining our election policies, our investments in Australia's future before the election, this will be the program that we implement in government. It is not the start of a debate, it will be the program we implement, it will be the discipline to which we administer to our policies that will not be then new programs and new spendings. If Labor was elected on July 2, it will be the program that we have outlined before July 2.
Labor is very committed to investing in jobs, education and health care. We're very committed to rigid Budget discipline, we're committed to building the nation-building infrastructure: our roads, our rail, our NBN, our energy grid that Australians need. We're committed to fair taxation, we're committed to restoring the dream of affordability for your first home and we're committed to the equal treatment of women. This will be our guiding principles, not just for this election but for Australia in 2025, a brighter, more prosperous destination. I'd now like to ask Chris to talk further about today's announcements.
CHRIS BOWEN, SHADOW TREASURER: Thanks very much Bill. It's a pleasure to join with Bill to launch our comprehensive plan for the future of Australia's economy under a Shorten Labor Government. The most comprehensive plan an Opposition has released in living memory when it comes to our economy.
The Liberals have a slogan about jobs and growth. Labor has a plan built on two years of hard work, consultation, leading the debate, policy announcements which have been made over the last two years, brought together today in a holistic, comprehensive plan which deals with investing in the future through schools, renewable energy, infrastructure, our plans for small business and the National Broadband Network. And importantly, our plans for the Budget which I'll talk a little bit about in detail now.
Bill has announced this morning that based on the Government's current projections, a Shorten Labor Government will return the Budget to balance in the same year as is forecast by the Government, ie 2020/21. We will, going forward, have stronger surpluses projected for a number of reasons. Firstly, we have made difficult decisions in the past two years which then provide important, good quality, structural savings to the Budget, building over time, like negative gearing. You'll remember when we first announced our negative gearing reforms, Malcolm Turnbull's big criticism was that it didn't raise enough in the first four years. Well, that's exactly the point. Our reforms build over time and provide a greater return to the Budget over the decade. We will also be releasing, we've confirmed, our four year - full four year figures before the election and during the election campaign and our 10 year figu res and it is true to say we will have less of a fiscal contraction than the Government over the first four years as we return to balance in the same year.
The Government has built their four year figures on two things, firstly retrospective measures, retrospective measures to boost their four year figures. So, we've rejected retrospectivity on negative gearing, we could have had higher four year figures if we'd changed the rules, moved the goal posts, but we won't do that as matter of principle. And secondly, they've built their figures on a fantasy, on zombie measures from the 2014 Budget which the Australian people and Parliament have rejected for the last three years. Their return to Budget balance, their 4 year figures, are based on the assumption that all of a sudden the Australian people and the Parliament changes its mind about those unfair measures. Well, that won't be happening.
By contrast, we have credible plan because it's fair, it is well thought through and we have sought a mandate to implement it. When Bill and I go to the Senate to seek to pass our first Budget, which will implement the plans Bill announced today, we will claim a mandate from the Australian people to deal with things like negative gearing and capital gains. So, return to balance in the same year as the Government, stronger surpluses over the decade and a different fiscal pathway back to balance based on real and credible figures, and the challenge for Scott Morrison and Mathias Cormann is this - we today have guaranteed to release our full four year and 10-year costings. Why won't they? They hide behind a $50 billion corporate tax cut which, remember, they did not want to tell the Australian people the cost of. The reason that they will not release their 10-year costings is because they can't. Because it will expose fiscal fra ud and recklessness and a $50 billion tax cut. They have an Emissions Reduction Fund which is funded only to 2020 and we'll have to continue after that if we are to achieve our targets. So we are prepared to be entirely and utterly accountable to the Australian people for the full impact of our budgetary figures, over four years and 10 and today we've announced important principles. Over coming days, Tony Burke and I will be announcing further budgetary measures to underline our return to budget balance strategy. We will be, unlike the Liberals at the last election who promised an adrenaline surge to confidence and a surplus in the first year, all based on voodoo economics, we are outlining our plans - and we have been for years. Since last February, when we announced multinational tax to high-income super to negative gearing to capital gains, leading the debate which we bring together in this economic plan today, which brings together the threads of L abor's hard work under Bill's leadership, and provides a comprehensive alternative plan for the nation.
SHORTEN: Thanks, Chris. Are there questions?
JOURNALIST: Why won’t you reveal your plans to further cut welfare benefits? Why are you waiting until the ends of the campaign?
SHORTEN: First of all, Chris has just said and I said in my speech, but Chris has just said then that in coming days we're going to talk a lot more about our numbers and we're going to be much more transparent than any Opposition has been in previous elections. But I will just remind you briefly, we have already done a lot of homework and a lot of policy work well before today. We led the debate about reforming negative gearing. We've led the debate about making multinationals pay their fair share. We've led the debate on a whole range of issues. We led the debate about tobacco excise. And again, the Government has either been following our agenda or has foolishly decided to back the big end of town and maintain unsustainable subsidies, but what we won't do is pretend to Australians that all of a sudden zombie cuts which are roaming the Senate for three years are not going to get past. We 9;re not going to dodgy-up our numbers in the short-term by promising cuts which the Senate is going to fight and fight. Secondly, we're not going to rely upon retrospective changes in order to pump up the tyres of an otherwise unlikely Budget vehicle of the Liberals but I will get Chris to go into further details.
BOWEN: Bill's outlined the situation, we have been announcing policies way in advance of the election. Now, this is a two month election campaign which Malcolm Turnbull decided was necessary so he needed a full two months for the Australian people to fully appreciate his brilliance - a month wouldn't do it. We have therefore taken those two months to outline our policies, we started with education and Bill announcing further education policies, we made health announcements. I think it is extraordinary this far into the election campaign, Labor has continued to lead the debate with detailed announcements, Mr Turnbull and Mr Morrison are reduced to ridiculous and shrill scare campaigns, little memes and the Treasurer of the day announcing Labor policies instead of getting his own right and getting the figures hopelessly wrong in a disastrous press conference about Labor's policies when he ca n't even get his own policies right, when his superannuation policy unravels before him during an election campaign. We will continue to do that and I am flagging to you today that we have more announcements to make about the Budget over coming days. We are flagging that with you today and we'll make those announcements and we will be holding press conferences and answering questions. Whereas the Liberals hid behind the second-last day of the election campaign last time, at five minutes to midnight they trotted out their costings. I mean, how dare they say to the Australian people that they will be open and transparent with the Australian people when at the last election, after the advertising blackout had commenced, that's when they released their costings - on the Thursday before the poll. That's when they did it. We're doing much better than that. We are going to provide updates to the Australian people about the impact of all our policies and way before, way before the precedent set by the Liberals at the last election, we will have all our figures out there. I note that even as of today, Scott Morrison and Mathias Cormann saying we'll update our Budget figures, the Government will update theirs. They don't have all their Budget figures out there so If we're looking at the accountability and transparency of both sides, I'm more than happy for you to judge our accountability and transparency against theirs and they will come up short.
JOURNALIST: If you've got bigger deficits over the four years but you're returning to balance in the same year, what is doing the heavy lifting in that period between the four years and 2021?
SHORTEN: Well what we have said is that we are not going to rely upon retrospective changes and cuts in the Senate which are basically zombie cuts, they're a fiction, but in the longer term, we've got a good glide path towards a very strong balance by our changes, for instance, to negative gearing. We made a very clear decision that people who've invested under the current negative gearing laws should not be affected by our future changes but what we start seeing is that by not having to spend so much money on negative gearing tax concessions and subsidies, by not having to spend money to the big banks, the $7.4 billion, the $30 billion going to overseas shareholders, we've got the capacity, along with our other changes, and more of which we will detail over the coming days, to be able to actually set Australia up for the long-term. What we will do is set our destinations and stick to our word. We 9;ll set our direction and stick to it. I think the Labor platform of making sure that we've got a skilled workforce that is a productive workforce, I think the Labor platform that we have a healthy population that adds to a productive workforce. I think the proposition that working parents, and in particular working women, are able to have affordable child care will add to more women being able to participate in the work place. I think a proposal around building tourism infrastructure in North Queensland will lead to more tourism jobs. I think a proposal to have cross river rail here in Brisbane and other great public transport nation-building projects around Australia, that's going to create more productivity and more jobs, that's how we can have a brighter future for Australia, because we have got positive policies.
JOURNALIST: You say you're going to stick to your word and Mr Bowen you said in your speech you'll improve the Budget without walking away from a single policy. You've already back tracked on restoring the School Kids Bonus, how can the Australian people believe you're going to do what you say you're going to do?
BOWEN: We have been very clear, unlike the Liberals who announced their 2013 election policies in the 2014 Budget - eight months after the election, we have been outlining our policies and yes, they're not all universally popular but we've made tough decisions for Budget repair. The point I was making earlier is that we've outlined the policies and not had to walk away from any. Mr Turnbull has outlined an increase in the GST, walked away from it, outlined state income taxes, walked away from it, Canberra withdrawing from funding from every public school in Australia, which lasted 48 hours rightfully, walked away from it. We have announced negative gearing and nobody has been able to undermine that policy and its effectiveness, capital gains tax reform, cracking down on VET rorts, not proceeding with the same-sex marriage plebiscite, not having the baby bonus, we have been doing that and what we ar e saying is we have more to announce in the coming days, building on what we've already announced and when I bring down the first Budget of a Shorten Labor Government it will be to implement the program we have received a mandate to do, not to announce our election policies eight months after the election, as Mr Hockey did, but to implement the policies we are announcing before this campaign and during this campaign.
JOURNALIST: This morning on radio Malcolm Turnbull said your plan is highly speculative. Does he have a point considering how do you know where we will be in 10 years time?
SHORTEN: I think it's shameful that Mr Turnbull is not prepared to navigate a course to the future looking at 10 years time. What has happened to the old Malcolm Turnbull who had vision and drive? It has been swallowed up by his right wing Liberal Party. I think it's shameful that you offer yourself for the leadership of this country but you're not prepared to tell Australians where we think we will be in 10 years time. I'm up for that challenge. I want to be Prime Minister and I want to be Prime Minister because I have got a good vision for the future of this country. In 2025, I want our primary school kids to be able to do coding and computational thinking. What I want is for working class and middle class kids to be able to afford to go to university. In 10 years time I want to have a stronger, better Medicare system, not one which has been undermined by the demise of bulk billing. I want us to be engaged in our region, I want small businesses to be able to compete and gain contracts throughout the region of which Australia occupies because we've got a world-class NBN. I want people to be able to get the train to work in Brisbane and Melbourne and a tram in Adelaide and a train in Perth which has got properly invested public transport networks. I want to have more jobs than we have now. I want to see the concrete bank help make the market for superannuation investment in infrastructure function as it should and I want this nation to take real action on climate change. Mr Turnbull does have a plan for 10 years. He's got a plan and he proudly announced it at the Budget and the days afterwards. He's got a plan to give the largest corporations in Australia a $50 billion tax give away. So Mr Turnbull picks and chooses his facts selectively, doesn't he? He's happy to give the biggest corporations in Australia a projection of a 10-year tax cut but when it comes to, I also say unfortunately on the down side, he's got a plan to cut schools over the next 10 years. Mr Turnbull's problem is he leads a divided party, they haven't got a real view about what they want to do, 9 months ago it was the GST, the 15 per cent GST, then that got too hard for the time being, then he proposed state income taxes, a second income tax on working Australians on top of the first they already pay, now his latest idea is a 10-year plan for a corporate tax give away. Mr Turnbull has plans for some people, he just doesn't have plans for everyone else.
JOURNALIST: There is a credible economist in the media this morning, Chris Murphy I think, saying there is very considerable flow-through from the tax cuts you haven't adopted and remain a deep critic of. Is he right or are you right? Can I also ask now we have a 10-year Labor economic plan, can you say to business with a turnover above $2 million, "You will not get a tax decrease, a tax cut, under a Shorten Labor Government in a decade," because that's what I read from your plan.
SHORTEN: Chris wants to answer this.
BOWEN: Thanks, Tim. Firstly I note that the Treasurer is trumpeting this modelling today, well last time the Treasurer involved himself in private sector modelling it was thoroughly discredited dodgy modelling about negative gearing policy which was leaked and his involvement in it was leaked. So he's got form, this Treasurer. He's prepared to dodgy-up modelling with private sector friends to justify his policy and attack Labor's policy. He might spend more time getting his own policies right. Now in relation to this particular modelling, this is the same firm which said there would be a morality dividend from the corporate tax cut because all of a sudden companies would pay more tax because they're so much happier paying 25 per cent than 30 per cent. That's the modelling which underpins this analysis, that all of a sudden multinationals which are evading tax will all of a sudden start paying it because 25 is a nicer figure than 30. Now the Treasury modelling says there will be a one per cent improvement in the Budget over a decade, which starts in a decade's time, so in 20 years’ time you'll get a one per cent dividend at the end of that decade, so 0.1 per cent every year. That is their modelling, now it is extraordinary that the Treasurer today is asking us not to believe the Treasury modelling but to believe some other modelling which shows a bigger impact. This is the Treasurer saying this modelling, apparently saying this modelling is more believable than the Treasury's own modelling. Now the Treasury's modelling says even their one per cent figure might be exaggerated because it assumes that all Government spending cut to fund a corporate tax cut is wasteful. Well we don't think spending on schools is wasteful and spending on hospitals is wasteful. So the Treasury itself says the modelling might be exaggerated, but even if y ou accept it - one per cent in 20 years’ time, I mean you'd need to get a microscope out to find the impact of the corporate tax cut on economic growth, a microscope out. And the Treasurer should admit that. Now we're happy to have all the modelling compared and the assumptions compared. If you look at the Grattan Institute modelling, it shows if you look at the Treasury's figures in its full light it's optimistic. They talk about 0.6 per cent not even one per cent over 20 years - 0.6 per cent. I mean you would need an extra powerful microscope to find the impact of this policy. The Liberals do not have a plan for jobs and growth. They have a slogan, they have a slogan. Isn't it interesting, the Prime Minister today talking about 10-year plans, he's walked away from his. He doesn't want to talk about his corporate tax cut. He says, "don't worry about it, it is in 10 years’ time and three elections, you can vote us out." I mean can you imagine if we tried that "don't worry about our plan it's over 10 years." We're proud of our 10 year plan. We'll stand behind it, we will talk about it, answer questions on it. Mr Turnbull is clearly embarrassed by his.
JOURNALIST: You said that in the coming days and weeks you will have more to say. When are taxpayers going to know definitively how much they're going to fork out for your policies? Is it going to be week seven, week eight, not the Thursday before?
SHORTEN: Well I just want to go to the second part of your question. A lot of our policies are not about taxpayers forking out. What they are about is not handing away unsustainable tax concessions to a lucky few. The real issue is that every Australian taxpayer is paying for a few people to get negative gearing. The real issue is that Australians will lose funding to schools, funding to hospitals, funding to health care, funding for the price of medicine just so a large corporation can get a tax cut. This election is all about choices. Now just to recap where we're at. We've outlined our very sensible and funded policies in education, childcare, TAFE, universities, schools. We've outlined what we're doing in some of our health care policies, keeping the price of medicine down, making sure that bulk billing is preserved. Now we have been talking about what we do in terms of tourism jobs, we have been talking about our economic plan. We're making clear the economic program we have been diligently outlining both before the election and since the formal election was called - we will make sure - and today I have recommitted to this - that every Australian will have the full Labor program well before the second of July. What I'm is also committing to today is to make sure that we are making very clear that there will be no new spending of unannounced programs that we've outlined our priorities and we'll keep doing it. There's another 23, 24 days to go, well before the conclusion of that period we'll outline all of our policies. What we are making clear is our priorities and our principles. What we're not doing is saying that Australia can afford a $50 billion tax cut, a tax give away to multinationals at the price of our health and education systems. In the past when there's been corporate tax reductions, that's because othe r taxes have been created. Mr Turnbull and Mr Morrison love to try and pretend somehow they are Keating light, the truth couldn't be further from that reality. What Paul Keating did when he reduced corporate taxes is he increased and introduced capital gains tax and fringe benefits tax. What Morrison and Turnbull want to do is pretend that you can simply cut corporate taxes by $50 billion dollars and have no negative consequences. Someone pays for Mr Turnbull and Mr Morrison's tax cuts and it will be sick Australians, it will be kids at school, it will be middle class and working class families.
JOURNALIST: You've continually said that the CFA EBA dispute is a state issue, if that's the case why did you meet with Peter Marshall, what did you discuss, and are you backing the Premier or Jane Garrett in this dispute?
SHORTEN: Well first of all, let's just go to what I've said for the last number of days. I've got the greatest respect for our volunteer firefighters and our career firefighters. I've also seen at a distance, enough negotiations to know there's a start, a middle and an end. And I've got no doubt that there is sufficient good will from people committed to both the full-time firefighting service and the volunteer firefighting service to find a solution. What I won't do is poison those negotiations by just taking political points during a federal election campaign, for what is clearly a state issue. In terms of who I meet with, I meet with business, I meet with unions, I even talk to Liberals periodically and I'm not going into the subject of each of those discussions, but what I also understand here is that Mr Turnbull is seeking, he doesn't have a solution to this dispute, he's just seeking to leverage off the efforts of firefighters, both full time and volunteer, and create false divisions, and that isn't going to help the resolution of that dispute or our fire services in Victoria.
JOURNALIST: Have you discussed that dispute with Daniel Andrews?
SHORTEN: I speak to state government, I said I've spoken to, I speak to a lot of people about a lot of things, you'll understand that I'm not going to go into each detail of my discussions.
JOURNALIST: Does the launch of this plan today, does this indicate Labor is worried about the public perception about economic management?
SHORTEN: Well I think we're both going to have a go at that, but let me go first. What we're doing is explaining our 10 year plan. Oppositions haven't been like us in terms of putting out the detail of our propositions in the manner which we have. What we've been doing during this eight week campaign, which Mr Turnbull gave to Australia, is we've been taking our time to explain what we would do in our various parts of our plan. Education, health, nation building infrastructure, the equal treatment of women in our society. And what we're doing today is outlining our priorities and the principles by which we will govern. And we will keep putting forward the full details of Labor's economic program, so that Australians have got a clear choice. What I’m doing is offering Australians, not just a choice for July 2, but a discussion about where this country needs to be in 10 years’ t ime.
BOWEN: Well, what this indicates is that we are more than happy to stand behind our plans, and we're proud to talk about our plans for the economy, and an important part of our plans for the economy are our plans for schools, our plans for improving productivity, our plans for return to Budget balance. And we'll continue to outline those, just as Bill has issue by issue, led the debate during this campaign, just as we've led the debate over the last two years, we'll continue to do so. And of course we have the tradition of Labor governing to grow our economy and to build growth and opportunity. And that's the reforming tradition in which Bill's determined to be Prime Minister and I'm determined to be Treasurer.
JOURNALIST: You spoke about transparency and being up front with the voters, you also said about the deficit that you would have not the same level of contractions. To be really up front, how about that in straight language, you're going to have higher deficits over the next four years?
SHORTEN: Well we will have not the same fiscal contraction, but we will achieve balance in the same year that the Liberal Party is saying, and over the 10 year period, we will, in our opinion, based on the economic forecasts and the information provided to us, we will have a much stronger financial position. What we are doing is tackling the structural problems. The structural problems in our Budget and our debt, and what we are doing is we're going to do it in an upfront way, which doesn't rely upon retrospective changes, which doesn't rely upon zombie cuts in the Senate. What we're doing, is we're having an intelligent conversation with the Australian people. We will do Budget repair that is fair.
BOWEN: I'll just briefly add to that. What we've said is that we will announce the impact on the Budget of our measures over four years and 10. Right, the figures will be there for all to see. The size of the Budget deficits, the impact of our decisions over four years and 10. The question is, why won't Mr Morrison do the same? Where are his 10 year figures? Where are his 10 year figures and, yes, the Government is claiming deficits over four years, both sides will have deficits over the next four years, they are claiming a figure which is a fantasy, based on zombie measures and retrospective taxes. We won't do that, that means we will have different deficit figures over those four years. We're saying that very clearly...
JOURNALIST: How is that different Mr Bowen?
BOWEN: We're saying that very clearly, and we will outline those figures, we will outline those figures well before Mr Hockey did at the last election, and we'll be here answering your questions about it in a fully transparent manner, and I invite Mr Morrison to give the same guarantee - he won't.
SHORTEN: I'll come to you next Tim, but just talking about transparency, why won't Malcolm Turnbull debate me? What's happened to Malcolm Turnbull, you know, he was, why won't he even front up to talk to voters in Brisbane? Hand-picked by Galaxy, swinging voters, non-aligned voters. Why is he so scared to even take the questions of people? So we are upfront, and that's why I'm looking forward to being at the Leagues Club tonight, to have that conversation directly with voters.
JOURNALIST: Mr Shorten, you've ratcheted up your rhetoric against the big four banks again today. Banks are for their sins and otherwise, a fairly slow moving, big target for a politician in an election campaign, why shouldn't Australians view this as just a cheap electioneering shot at the banks, and actually think you've got some substance?
SHORTEN: Tim, I don't accept at all that banks somehow are the innocent party here. What worries me mate, is what happens to the consumers that have been ripped off. I think it is a scandal that three of our four banks are now being investigated for rate rigging. That's not just about $1.7 trillion of Australian financial services, that is about people paying their mortgages, that is about self-funded retirees. You know, Mr Turnbull has got some really serious explaining to do here, why he is so keen to protect the banks from the scrutiny of a Royal Commission. You know, absolutely this election you've got a very clear choice about what happens in the terms of the confidence Australians can have in our banking sector. You can vote Liberal and have a cover up, or you can vote Labor and have a Banking Royal Commission. Mr Turnbull wants to hand $7.4 billion dollars in tax payer money to banks in the form o f reduced taxes that they pay, a Budget give away, which causes real harm for other programs which government should be doing like healthcare and education. Yet Labor just wants the banks to be accountable and transparent. We are not letting go of this issue. It's not Labor who invented the Comminsure problems, it's not Labor who's invented the rate rigging scandals, it's not Labor who invented all of the sort of issues that we see, that Jeff Morris, the courageous whistle-blower has had to speak out on, we are just saying what the Australian people think.
JOURNALIST: How big a difference will there be between your deficit projections and the Government's deficit projections over the forward estimates?
BOWEN: Well when we announce those figures you'll see that. The improvement to the Budget bottom line over the decade under our plans will be significantly better than the Government's, significantly better. As the OECD has suggested, as late as this week, that fiscal repair should be conducted over the medium term because we don't want to hit the economy hard with an urgent contraction. And when the Government tried that in 2014 and the economy is still paying the price, the impact on confidence, on investment, we're still paying the price two years later as a nation for the Government getting the economy wrong in 2014. Now, we're indicating we have a proper plan which boosts growth in the short term, builds productive capacity in the long term and sees our Budget return to Budget balance and protects the AAA rating. Now we've called it out, I've called it out and said the AAA rating is under threat, under real threat. I'm prepared to be honest with the Australian people about that, Mr Morrison will not. And the best plan to return the Budget to balance and protect the AAA rating is, as the OECD suggests, one which builds over the medium term. The measures we implement will be implemented straight away, in our first Budget. But they build over time to provide an important structural improvement to the Budget. And that's why Mr Morrison won't release his 10 year figures, because he would be embarrassed by them.
SHORTEN: Can I just take one more question, Dan you haven't had one.
JOURNALIST: The Liberals savings pledge you've said is based on heroic and rosy assumptions, isn’t this promise as rosy and heroic as those assumptions, or will that change after the election?
SHORTEN: Our 10 year economic plan is based on the best interests of the Australian people. This plan outlines our policy priorities and the principles by which we would govern if we're elected on July 2. We're being very up front with the Australian people, we believe that it is important to invest in the health of Australians, we believe it is important to invest in the education of Australians, we believe it is important to take real action on climate change, focusing on renewable energy at the centre of that. We think it is very important to make sure that first home buyers are not locked out of the housing market. We think it is fundamental to reform our taxation system. We think it is fundamental to this country's economic productivity and prosperity to have nation-building infrastructure, including in Brisbane with Cross River Rail. Labor is being upfront with the Australian people. We’ve be en working very hard on our policies, we've been setting the policy agenda for the best part of 12 months. We have a plan which includes Australians, which doesn't leave Australians behind. We have a plan for Budget repair that is fair. We do not intend to try and pump up the national budget by smashing family budgets. Instead, we've got a positive plan for working class and middle class Australian families, for small businesses, for the people who make this country tick every day. We're prepared to outline a vision not just for July 2, but for the next 10 years. Australians deserve nothing less. Thank you very much everybody.
ENDS
