Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs ) Share this | Hansard source

Perhaps the most perplexing element to this crack economic team's economic record is their decision to take away tax cuts from small business and give it back to big mining companies. This is the party that was born out of small business—Menzies' forgotten people, the people they once said they would look after—and they now want to rip away tax cuts for small business and give it to billionaires, to big mining companies. Robert Menzies would be spinning in his grave if he heard this now. This is not the party of Menzies anymore. It is not even the party of John Howard or Peter Costello anymore. Remember what I said earlier: you would not trust this man to run the economy. Nor should the Australian people. They want a debate about the economy. I say, terrific. This is the battle ground that most Australians care about. It affects their lives every single day. This government has the ammunition to have that debate.

Let's compare our record against your record. Have a look at these figures. Jobs are higher now than they have ever been before—more than 11,400,000 are now employed. Inflation is lower now than it was when the Liberal Party left office. Under us, underlying inflation is 2.6 per cent. When they left office it was outside the RBA's target band at 3.7 per cent. The cash rate is lower than it was under them. It is 4.25 per cent, while it was 6.75 when they left office. The cost of the average mortgage is lower now than it was when the Liberal Party left office. An average family—and there are plenty of them in my electorate—paying off a mortgage of $300,000 now pays $3,000 less a year in mortgage repayments. Government spending is also lower. Under this government real spending growth averages 1.5 per cent over the forward estimates. Under them, spending blew out to 3.7 per cent over the last five years. Under this government real wages have also grown faster. Real wages have grown by eight per cent since November 2007. Real wages grew by only 5.4 per cent over the last four years of the last Liberal government. These are the facts and this is our record.

It is a fact that politics is about choices. At the next election the people of Australia will have a choice. If they vote for the Labor Party they will get this sort of economic management. If they vote for the Liberal Party, who knows what sort of economic management they would get. If they vote for the Labor Party they will get tax cuts. If they vote for the Liberal Party, we now know that tax cuts are just an aspiration. Vote for the Labor Party and they will know we are giving an increase to pensioners. Vote for the Liberal Party and they will take that increase to pensioners back. Vote for the Labor Party and the people of Australia will get the National Broadband Network. Vote for the Liberal Party and they will rip that network out. Vote for the Labor Party and you will get the budget back into surplus. Vote for the Liberal Party and you will get a $70 billion black hole. Vote for the Labor Party and you will get a national disability insurance scheme. If you vote for the Liberal Party you will not. If you vote for the Liberal Party, as the people of New South Wales have seen in the last few weeks, you end up with disabled kids on the side of the road waiting for a bus that never comes.

That is the choice the people of Australia will have, and it is time it was known. It is time that this lazy, incompetent opposition, who cannot even speak about the economy for 15 minutes—and I am encouraging the next speaker to try to speak about the economy for longer than the member for North Sydney—was exposed for what they are. They are not the party of Menzies any more. They are not the party of Howard and Costello any more. They cannot even pretend to be Peter Costello or John Howard by standing on their shoulders.

We are happy to have this economic debate. We are happy to have it every day of the week, because we have the record and we are very happy to compare it against yours. When you compare our record on the economy to yours the choice is clear.

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