Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Social Security Amendment (Liquid Assets Waiting Period) Bill 2009. In speaking to this bill, one has to look at the approach to the global financial crisis that the government has taken, as opposed to that of the opposition. The government has taken a position that we need to be there to try to cushion the Australian economy from the worst aspects of the global financial crisis. Compare that position with that of those opposite us, who think we should sit and do nothing and we should wait and see what happens and hope that we can muddle our way through it.

Clearly, you have a distinction between a government that wants to act and an opposition that is absent. It should not come as a surprise when we look at the last 12 years during which they were asleep at the wheel of an economy that was booming and they were not investing at all in relation to infrastructure issues, not investing in relation to any of the nation-building issues that needed to be addressed and not making sure that the capacity constraints that were stopping the economy from developing further were addressed, even though the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia said on 20 occasions that they needed to do something about all this. So it is not a surprise that in opposition their position is as it was in government—do nothing.

When you look at the contribution from the member for Mitchell today, it absolutely highlights the opposition’s position on this particular issue. What he has told us is that we should break a promise in relation to industrial relations. It might be something that members on the other side of the House are very happy to do, to walk away from election promises, but I can assure you that government members certainly do not walk away from election promises, particularly those in relation to making people at work more secure in their employment, making sure that they have some security. This was such a major issue at the last election that for the member for Mitchell to say we should just walk away from this key election promise really shows not just how out of touch he is with what happened in the last election but also how out of touch he is with ordinary Australians. This was a major issue in my electorate and in electorates right across this country.

That was one of his propositions. Another proposition was that, as he was trying to tell this House, spending money on schools might have had some social benefit but it did not have any economic benefit. How does he come up with this type of hypothesis? I have been speaking to builders in my electorate and their great concern is making sure they have enough tradesmen to do the work at the schools. Dobell has a higher proportion of tradespeople than most electorates around this country. This economic stimulus in building schools is tailor made for the electorate of Dobell. I submit it is also tailor made for the Australian economy across the board. For the member for Mitchell not to see any connection between building and jobs again highlights just how out of touch he is on these issues.

The other area worth mentioning concerning my electorate and the economic effects of the stimulus package is the effect on retail jobs that the cash handouts have had. In Dobell, the retail sector is the largest employer of any area of work. There are more people employed on the Central Coast who work in retail than in any other area. While that is probably a little unusual, it is not uncommon with 1½ million people employed in retail for retail to be a significant component of every electorate around Australia. Quite clearly, the stimulus package helped cushion job losses that may occur in the retail area—it certainly did in my electorate of Dobell. We are already getting calls following the second stimulus package saying that the shopping malls at Tuggerah, Erina Fair and Bay Village are busier than they have been in a long time. This is a direct result of the stimulus. What does that do? It creates jobs and jobs are retained because people are being employed.

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