Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise with pleasure to talk on this matter of public importance, the issue of economic reform in the Australian economy. The previous speaker, the shadow minister, quoted various people’s words. I will cite some words back to her that I think summarise the approach from those opposite on this issue, and that is the statement by the current Leader of the Opposition that he actually had no interest in the economy, no interest in economic reform. There are very few topics that can be debated in the national parliament of this country that are of more significance to the long-term welfare of the people of this country than economic reform. It is the foundation of prosperity for the next generation. As members of parliament, it is a responsibility that we carry in this place to lay the foundations for the next generation to live at least with the lifestyles to which we have been accustomed and hopefully to improve those. The standard of the debate that we have had from those opposite on this MPI is pretty disappointing within that context and pretty disappointing all around. The Leader of the Opposition spent a great deal of his speech attacking, on a political basis, aspects of our party and aspects of internal discussions within our party. But at the end of the day that does not address the issue of what he stands for, his vision for where this nation should go. It might be a bit of fun for him, it might be some cheap political points, but it actually reflects the reason that his address on this MPI was so sadly lacking and, even more seriously, let down the people of this nation. He did not once, in the whole 15 minutes, outline his own vision of where this nation should go and what the economic reforms are that are required to take us into the future.

I remind members opposite of the situation that we were facing in 2007 as we went into the election. We had had 10 interest rate rises in a row. People were paying higher interest rates than they are paying today. Why was that? There had been significant ongoing warnings about the inflationary pressures in our economy that were putting pressures on interest rates. The Reserve Bank itself had been warning about the blockages in our economy that were creating inflationary pressures. Significantly, the two of those that were most important were infrastructure bottlenecks and skills shortages. We were being lobbied consistently by people like the Australian Industry Group and the Business Council about the problems that were occurring and the growing pressures in the economy arising from those two significant reform areas that were not being addressed. As a result of that, we went into the 2007 election with an economic plan to take some serious action on infrastructure investment and skills development. That is what we have been working on over the time since the 2007 election—significant new investment in the traditional forms of infrastructure: access to rail, development of our ports, improvements to the national road network. All of that is significant for my region and those of many of my colleagues in the House. These things are important drivers of regional development and growth and, because of that, economic development and growth for the nation.

Beyond that, we understand that there is now a need for the next generation of infrastructure: the fibre-to-the-home network that will be the foundation of the National Broadband Network. The Leader of the Opposition said that wireless is the way to go and that mobile is the way to go. I suggest to him that if he does not understand that the two technologies sit side by side and in many ways fill very different purposes then he needs to go back and do a bit more research on the issue of communications infrastructure. Mobile broadband will of course play a significant role in people’s futures. But the foundation to create a more productive economy—the support, for example, of the thousands of home based businesses that exist in all of our electorates—requires fibre-to-the-home fast broadband access. That is what will transform many of our regional economies.

In my own area, 20,000 people commute to work a day who do not do a seven- or eight-hour work day but who do a 12-hour work day because of the amount of travel that has to be added to their day. Then you can add on the social costs that that has to our community. They cannot train the kids football team in the evening because they are not home early enough; they cannot participate in volunteer activities in the community. Then there is the lost expenditure in their communities, which is a direct economic cost to us as a region. They are more likely to shop in Sydney if they are working there.

A lot of those jobs are what you would call back office jobs. They are jobs in finance and HR. They are jobs that, with safe, reliable and secure broadband to their homes, could be done from home for significant periods of the week—it might not be all week; they might go to Sydney on Monday and Friday and work from home in the middle of the week. That capacity to transform our regional economies will be driven on the back of the provision of fibre-to-the-home technology. So it will benefit not just the small businesses that operate from home in my electorate; it will benefit the commuters. They will have a significant change to the way in which they can live and work.

I look at my grandfather’s generation, who were generally living in an area in which they could almost walk to work because that is how you had to live your life. Then I look at where we are now, where, through the transformation of transport infrastructure, people take jobs much further from home. Is it that hard to envisage a next stage of growth for our economy that can release people from those ties and allow them to work and develop businesses from their homes? It is already happening in our communities. The National Broadband Network will be the foundation for transforming the way that we live in the modern world.

It is pretty sad if the Leader of the Opposition cannot begin to comprehend that. However, I hope that is what it is. I hope that it is not just that he is opposing it because he feels that the way to move his leadership to this side of the House is to simply tear down everything that this side of the House puts up. This should be something that we all are committed to in order to transform our economy. We have a plan for it.

I also want to take up the point that the Leader of the Opposition raised about the fact that if he were on this side that there would be no mining tax and no carbon tax. As I indicated in question time today when I asked the Prime Minister a question about the climate change issue, I come from a regional economy that was built on the back of coal mining and steel. They are still significant and important components within our economy. But one of the great strengths of the Illawarra region is the capacity that we have to diversify and to take our traditional industries and to value add to them. For example, BlueScope Steel now makes a lot of water tanks and the infrastructure for renewable energies. They are diversifying to be part of the new economy. Particularly under the Hawke and Keating governments, we also expanded the growth of the University of Wollongong. That has driven the economy of our region into becoming much more diversified.

If you want to diversify and increase the productivity of your economy to create new employment opportunities for the next generation then you have to make sure that the boom that you experience on the back of your minerals is transformed into investments in long-term projects that can be part of the transformation of our economy. That is what the mining tax is about. We need to take the boom period of minerals and ensure that we use that to diversify our economic base. I would suggest that particularly the reforms to superannuation are an important part of that. When I was on the economics committee in the parliament before the previous one, chaired by the previous member for Cook, there was a great understanding on both sides that the boom in the mining economy needed to be developed and utilised for the good of all Australians in diversifying the base of our economy. That is reform; that is a plan for reform in our economy.

The same applies to the carbon tax. Tackling the challenge of the world moving to a carbon constrained future means realising that there is not just a cost in not taking action but a cost in losing the initiative in creating the new opportunities in the world economy by being a leader in these technologies and being a leader in transformation. We need to be able to export to the world the expertise and the innovation that Australians are so famous for when it comes to new manufacturing and mining technology. Wherever our traditional base is, we are good at finding answers and solutions. I have faith that this country can do that and that will in fact be the foundation for new growth and new opportunities. That is a plan for the future of our economy. (Time expired)

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