Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and thank you for choosing my suggestion. The Prime Minister has declared that this year there will be a debate on the economy. Despite her best endeavours to close question time on Tuesday and to curtail debate yesterday, we want to have a debate on jobs and the economy. The job I want to talk about is not her job, even though that seems to be the preoccupation of most of the parliamentary Labor Party members and many others. I want to talk about the jobs of everyday Australians. Labor has not delivered on jobs. The Treasurer promised on budget night last year that his budget was all about jobs, jobs, jobs. In fact, he claimed in the budget papers that the budget itself would help to create 500,000 jobs in the following 12 months. He also claimed, by the way, in the budget that he would have a $22 billion deficit. Of course, neither has eventuated. In fact, as he admitted to Fran Kelly on Radio National just a few days ago, on 30 January:

KELLY:

In terms of the positives though, the Government positively forecast half a million new jobs over the next few years to be created. Given the zero jobs growth last year, are you still confident that that figure holds, that it can be achieved?

TREASURER:

Well, certainly we will do less than that ...

Of course they will do less than that. For the first time in 20 years, last year there was no jobs growth in Australia. In fact the jobs news is likely to get worse, given the Roy Morgan employment index and, obviously, the reported news about job losses. Since the beginning of January more than 2,000 job cuts have been announced. At this point I remind the minister at the table, the Minister for Trade, of the comments by the Prime Minister in relation to job losses. This is a very important set of words from the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister said to the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce:

These are powerful, economy-wide transformations, perhaps best thought of as 'growing pains'.

Just as the Labor Party said when Prime Minister Howard alluded to the fact that families 'have never had it so good', so too will this Prime Minister regret job losses at every stage being defined simply as her own words: growing pains. Is it growing pains for Westpac, who announced 400 job losses just a few days ago, for the Royal Bank of Scotland, with 200 job losses, and for ANZ, with 1,000 job losses within the next six months? These are the Prime Minister's 'growing pains'. Holden will lose 100 jobs, Toyota will lose 350 jobs—but that is just growing pains. BHP will lose 155, Reckitt Benckiser 190, Manildra 70, Norsk Hydro 150, Tomago Aluminium 100, Thales 50, Don Smallgoods 31 and Macquarie Group 1,000 around the world. This is just 'growing pains' according to our Prime Minister.

But growing pains were never meant to hurt this much, and that is the problem. No matter how high the challenge of the increasing cost of living, everyday Australians cannot meet it at all without a job. And the only job this Prime Minister is concerned about is her own, because we know that when she announces job programs they do not work. There is no better example than the Jobs Fund Infrastructure Employment Projects Program. It was set up more than 12 months ago—$150 million and not one job. When asked a simple question today by the Leader of the Opposition about aluminium jobs, what was the Prime Minister's response? 'Well, we've got a $3½ billion fund.' The bottom line is that the only way to create jobs is to have prosperity. The only way to create jobs is to have a growing economy. The only way to create jobs is to give employers an incentive to make money and therefore to spend money to continue to grow. That is the only way you create jobs. We did it; we know. After we left government in 2007, in February 2008—just a few months later, the lag indicator of unemployment—unemployment was just four per cent. That was on top of a budget surplus. That was on top of money in the bank. We left them with the most robust employment indicator Australia had seen in 30 years, yet somehow they are taking pride today in an unemployment rate of 5.2 per cent with a falling participation rate.

The government see that as a great moment of signature achievement. They keep comparing us to Spain or Greece or Italy or a range of other countries—perhaps Ireland would get a mention—all countries where the unemployment rate is well into the double digits, instead of comparing us to the fastest players out there. We are a nation of aspirational people. We want to aspire to be the best. So when we talk about the Asian Century let us compare ourselves to those economies. Do not compare us to Europe and the United States in order to make us look good, because they are no longer our competition. The Asian Century is real. Therefore, we must compare ourselves with the fastest runner in the field because we are a nation that wants to win. We have always wanted to win. Whether it be in sport, the arts or anything else, we want to be the best in the world, and I would encourage the government to start addressing the fact that we have to compare ourselves to the best.

When it comes to the cost of living, the Labor Party must be held to account. Over the four years of Labor, headline inflation has averaged 2.9 per cent. Under the coalition it averaged 2.4 per cent. More telling has been the cost of essential services under Labor. In just four years electricity has gone up 60 per cent, gas has gone up 36 per cent, water and sewerage have gone up 58 per cent. They are the things that people have to buy every day. It is not discretionary spending. It is not a TV or even a second computer at home. These are the things people have to spend money on every day. Health care has gone up 19.5 per cent, education has gone up 23.8 per cent, insurance has gone up 31.6 per cent and basic foods like lamb have gone up 26.2 per cent. Fruit has gone up 39 per cent and of course rent, the one that many Australians cannot avoid, has gone up 24.6 per cent.

What is Labor doing to address that? They are introducing a carbon tax, and the carbon tax is going to increase the cost of everything. It is going to increase the cost of electricity, gas, water, health care and education. It is going to increase the cost of insurance. It will increase the cost of lamb and fruit, and it will increase the cost of rent because it is a tax on the way we live. It is a tax on energy, and as a nation we need energy to propel ourselves forward. The carbon tax is a tax on everything.

Why were many Australians disappointed that the Reserve Bank did not cut interest rates this year? I would say that was because what they are actually paying under Labor is higher than what they paid under us. Let us be very clear: this is a government that keeps using selective data as its basic input. The truth is, under the coalition the standard variable mortgage rate—the one that people actually pay—was 7.26 per cent on average; under Labor, 7.51 per cent on average, and even then that is after the cash rate of the Reserve Bank went down to three per cent, that is even when the economy had a negative quarter. Out of all of that, what people actually pay out of their pocket for a home mortgage is higher under Labor.

What is more dramatic than the typical home loan of $294,800 being $700 a year cheaper under us than it is under Labor? The big one is small business. For small business, the average rate under Labor is 10.23 per cent for an average small business unsecured overdraft. Under us it was 8.89 per cent. For a $200,000 overdraft the difference for a small business is $2,680 a year. It is a huge amount of money when they are thinking about increasing the work commitments of existing staff or employing another person part time.

For all the huff and puff of the Treasurer against the banks, on more than 50 occasions he has warned the banks to pass through the RBA cash rate change and he has been ignored on 50 occasions. In fact, I lie, because it was 51 occasions. I keep forgetting the last interest rate cut when his old mate at the National Australia Bank did not even pass it on in full. So over the four years of Labor, the spread between the Reserve Bank cash rate and the home mortgage and business borrowing rates has averaged 2.73 per cent, almost one per cent more than under the coalition.

Then we come to the deficit of debt. Let me be very clear: the coalition went to the 2010 election promising a surplus in 2012-13 and we did so based on the Treasury data that was released during the course of the election campaign. It is known as the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook. All the other data that comes out of the government during the course of a parliamentary term is in fact the figures that belong to the Minister for Finance and the Treasurer—they are their figures. The only time you have a release of raw Treasury data, which is the starting gun for every debate about surpluses over the course of an election campaign, is during an election campaign itself with the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook.

When we had those numbers we quite rightly forecast that we would have had a surplus in 2012-13. We are as committed as ever to fiscal prudence. We are as committed as ever to smaller government. We are as committed as ever to giving Australians more control of their own money. But we cannot believe the Labor Party's own budget today, which was meant to be at first a $12 billion deficit, and then a $22 billion deficit, and after just six months it turned into a $37 billion deficit. If they manage to have a $15 billion blow-out in just six months when you have about trend growth, when you have the best terms of trade in 100 years, they are now asking us to believe that they are going to have the biggest fiscal consolidation in Australia in 60 years in just 12 months.

They talk about a $70 billion costing hole—that is over four years. The Labor Party says it is going to do half of that in 12 months. They are miracle workers! If the miracle is to be performed then let us all have a look. Now we have the government saying, 'We will deliver a surplus next year.' The Prime Minister says, 'We will deliver a surplus.' The problem is that we will not know until September 2013 and I am prepared, as a betting man, to put a little bit aside. I suggest that the current Prime Minister is not going to be in that job in 2013.

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