Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition has a very interesting two-part approach to the pressures that the global financial crisis is placing on employment in Australia. Firstly, he never misses an opportunity to oppose a government measure to support jobs. The Leader of the Opposition has opposed every measure the government has taken to keep employment robust in Australia. The second part of his strategy is then to criticise the government for not doing enough. The opposition oppose every measure we take and then criticise us for not doing enough. Consistency and internal logic have not been very high on the Leader of the Opposition’s agenda of late—we know that—but this MPI is a bit rich, even coming from him. One commentator recently said that he was not particularly concerned if the Leader of the Opposition is not consistent all the time as long as he is right occasionally, but not even that was the case. I would like to see some consistency as well as the Leader of the Opposition being right, but we have not seen that either of late.

Let us have a look at the three major things that the government has done to support jobs and keep employment as robust as it can be in these very difficult times. First, there is the Economic Security Strategy, the first stimulus package, announced by the government last October. In the interests of fairness, the opposition did support that, even though they now oppose it. They voted for it at the time, even though they now take every opportunity to distance themselves from it. They call it a cash splash. They call it a sugar hit. That is not what they said to Australia’s pensioners and families at the time. That is not what they said when the Australian people were focused on those payments. I think the Leader of the Opposition and his colleagues are hoping that the Australian people do not realise that he has actually reneged on his support of that package. I think he is hoping that the recipients of the bonus payments and the payments to families do not know that he has walked away from supporting them in these difficult times. But the opposition’s original support was well placed. It has played a key role in supporting jobs. Retail trade in Australia in December increased by 3.8 per cent. In Canada it fell by 5.4 per cent. In the US it fell by three per cent, in Japan by 1.9 per cent, in Germany by 0.9 per cent and in New Zealand by one per cent.

The Leader of the Opposition has another very interesting little theory that retail trade has nothing to do with jobs and that increase in retail trade has no impact on employment. Usually in economic debates you can find some economist somewhere to support your theories. You can find some economist in the world to lean on for support for your theories. But the Leader of the Opposition will not find one to support his theory on this particular matter. I do not think he could find one economist who would support such an outlandish theory. On the contrary, economists have pointed out that the government’s stimulus package on retail trade has had a real impact on jobs. Tony Meer from Deutsche Bank said:

Retailers … bolstered by the cash-bonus-inspired strength in sales … have responded in January by retaining higher than usual post-Christmas staff levels.

The Age reported that ANZ senior economist Katie Dean believes that the government’s stimulus package has worked in retaining jobs in January, in tandem with aggressive rate cuts. Perhaps most importantly of all, Dr Gruen from the Australian Treasury said:

… we have evidence that the package stimulated consumption. We have … reason to believe that that would have led to more people being employed than would otherwise have been the case.

So the Leader of the Opposition now walks away from that package, which unquestionably, undoubtedly, has supported jobs in Australia.

The ESS was also about putting a floor under confidence in the housing construction sector, which is so important to the employment of so many thousands of Australians. What effect has it had? Almost 30,000 first home buyers had entered the property market by the end of January, using the first home owners grant. The number of first home owners taking out housing loans has increased by 21.3 per cent, pushing their share of new loans to a quarter, which is the highest level since December 2001. Considering the economic situation in Australia and around the world, I think these are pretty extraordinary figures, showing the impact of the government’s Economic Security Strategy.

Then we come to the Nation Building and Jobs Plan, the second government stimulus package. In this case at least the opposition have been more consistent. They opposed it all the way, to the death knell. They opposed it in early morning votes, in late night votes and, as I recall, even at the third reading stage, which is quite unusual. They opposed it in the other House. They opposed it right to the very end. They opposed our efforts to support Australian jobs. Now they criticise us for not doing enough. What did they say? What was their great strategy? Why didn’t they support it? Because they were going to wait and see. They were going to wait and see what the Australian economy did. The former shadow Treasurer, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, said their strategy was to wait and see. The new shadow Treasurer has said as much in as many words. He said: ‘They have spent too much fuel. They should leave some in the tank. They are doing too much too soon. We have racked up too much debt.’ Bear in mind that, at the end of the forward estimates of this budget process, Australian government debt will be one-tenth of the OECD average. They do not care about jobs. Their debt argument is a straw man. They come in here and cry crocodile tears about the unemployed while opposing packages to support jobs in Australia. What a load of hypocrites! They oppose packages to support jobs then come in here and complain that we are not doing enough.

The impact of this package is only just starting to be felt. It will take some time to flow through to the Australian economy, as you would expect. Most of the payments have not yet even been made. But we have seen some early, encouraging indications of some impact, with retailers reporting increased sales last week as the first of the payments were made to families. The payments to families were just one part of the Nation Building and Jobs Plan. There was support for both big and, particularly, small business. There was $2.7 billion in enhanced depreciation for investment, with particular flexibility when it comes to small business. The Council of Small Business of Australia, COSBOA, said this: ‘The worst thing we can do is not do anything. I think half-hearted action is not required as well. We want somebody to get out there and do something big, and this is big.’

That is support from the small business sector for the Nation Building and Jobs Plan. They are saying, ‘Don’t wait and see, don’t have half measures and don’t sit and watch the world pass you by as unemployment washes through Australia—get out there and do something.’ That is what the government have done, because we do not think the opposition’s approach is sustainable or sensible.

We come to the third matter, which will be before the House in just a little while: the Australian Business Investment Partnership. I was interested to hear the Leader of the Opposition say that this is the most misconceived policy measure the Rudd government has embarked upon. That just shows how little he cares about Australian jobs. Anyone who had been in contact late last year and early this year with the business community, big or small, would know that one of the major concerns for business around the boardrooms of Sydney, Melbourne and elsewhere was the potential for foreign banks to withdraw from the Australian market in whole or in part. Anybody in contact with the Australian business community would know that. And it remains a very understandable concern. Several overseas banks have been nationalised, and their new owners are requiring them to focus on their home markets. We are already seeing evidence of foreign banks withdrawing to their home markets. I am aware of one nation in which the prudential regulation authority has changed the rules to favour domestic lending over foreign lending when it comes to capital adequacy requirements—really putting the pressure on foreign banks to stay in their home markets, something which will have a devastating impact on the Australian economy and Australian jobs.

The Leader of the Opposition again would have us think that this somehow is all about supporting the banks and not about supporting jobs. Perhaps in the forlorn hope of distancing himself from his former career, he tries to pour buckets over the banks and buckets over the government, when this is all about supporting Australian jobs. It is not just the government who says this. The Master Builders Association says: ‘The government has acted. It has acted in a timely way. We have to focus on what is the immediate problem, which is the lack of finance flows in this industry, and without that finance we will see job losses.’

This is the package that the opposition opposes. Aaron Gadiel from the Urban Taskforce said:

Without action we would lose valuable jobs, income and development that our community desperately needs. For every $1 million spent on construction, 27 jobs are created.

We have a scheme which is designed to support Australian jobs, to stop the impact of the global financial crisis, to stop the withdrawal of foreign funding impacting on Australian employment and to save Australians from being thrown on the dole queue, and the opposition says that it is the most misconceived policy that we have come up with. That is commitment to employment for you, that is commitment to Australian workers for you and that is commitment to Australian jobs for you from this Leader of the Opposition, who behaves inconsistently at every opportunity.

The Leader of the Opposition raises carbon trading and the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, saying that he does not support the introduction of a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme even though, when in government, it was his policy to do so. Even though their shadow minister for the environment criticised our package as being too similar to theirs at the time, those opposite now say that they do not support emissions trading because it will affect jobs. They completely ignore the Treasury modelling which says that if you delay action you will cost jobs, that if you put action off on the never-never you will be throwing Australians onto the unemployment heap as we try to catch up and that, as the rest of the world moves—and we have seen President Obama moving in recent weeks towards carbon trading—if we leave it too late we will be throwing Australians on the unemployment heap. And the Leader of the Opposition is all for it. The Leader of the Opposition ignores the Treasury modelling.

The opposition would have us believe that there is a choice between the environment and jobs. We do not think there is a choice; we think that is a lazy approach. We think you can make a contribution to tackling climate change in the world and you can support Australian jobs at the same time. We think you can support alternative energy. We think you can embrace the methodology of the CSIRO, which says that up to 350,000 jobs in the alternative energy sector can be created as you embrace carbon trading. The opposition oppose it for cheap political purposes and the Leader of the Opposition opposes it to save his own job. That is the real agenda that he has. Every time the opposition have been tested, they have opposed jobs. Every time they have been tested, they have argued that we should wait and see. Every time they have been tested, they have said we should do less to support Australian workers. Every time they have been tested, they have failed when it comes to Australian jobs. Every time they have been tested, they have said that the Australian government is doing too much and we should do less. Is it any wonder that the Leader of the Opposition’s position is under such threat when he engages in these sorts of politics; when he engages in sophistry about employment, which is so important to so many millions of Australians; when he comes in here and opposes, to the death knell—through all-night sittings and early morning votes—measures which have at their very fibre, at their core, the protection and support of Australian employment. No wonder the Leader of the Liberal Party is under such pressure, because his hypocrisy has been exposed.

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