Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

When those opposite interject and suggest that they would have had Australia take on no debt, effectively they are taking the position of the man who chooses when the floodwaters rise not to put a lifeboat on the credit card. They would have chosen loss of jobs and a recession ahead of taking on modest debt. What Australia bought for the modest debt that we took on during the global financial crisis was hundreds of thousands of lives not blighted by unemployment and small businesses that were able to survive. The best small business policy ever pursued by a government over the course of the last generation was fiscal stimulus in the teeth of the worst downturn since the global recession. When those opposite seek to airbrush out the global financial crisis from Australia's history they are doing a disservice to the bipartisan fiscal stimulus policy supported in its first tranche by the coalition but then backed off from by those who would have you believe that it is better to drown in floodwaters than to put a lifeboat on the credit card. Like the rhetoric on a 'wages break-out', the rhetoric on deficits is belied by the facts.

To the extent that anyone is concerned about deficit levels in Australia they should be concerned about a government that has increased the deficit compared to the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook. The yardstick when a government takes office—as Peter Costello taught us through the Charter of Budget Honesty, and as Scott Morrison, the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, admitted in question time—is the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook. As the minister for immigration put it, that is when officials tell the truth. Compared with that benchmark, the deficit is higher this year, it is higher next year and it is higher under the forward estimates. So those opposite can bleat all they like about deficits. They have increased deficits not decreased them.

Government members interjecting—

Those opposite may laugh but these are simple numbers. You can laugh in the face of the budget papers all you like, but the only way those opposite are able to show that they have decreased deficits is if they compare Joe with Joe: if they compare the outcome in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook brought down by Joe Hockey with the outcome in the budget brought down by Joe Hockey. If we do the right thing, the fair thing, the only decent thing, the Charter of Budget Honesty thing, and compare this budget with the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook, we see that it has a bigger deficit not a smaller one.

Globally Australia does not have a debt and deficit problem, but this government is making the problem worse with its deal with the Greens for unlimited debt and with its increase in the deficit. Australia has serious economic challenges to focus on, but those challenges are being distracted from by a government more interested in trash talking the economy than talking it up. We have seen a collapse in consumer confidence, we have seen declining retail sales and we are seeing a fall in house prices. These things are being driven by a government that is fundamentally wanting to remain in opposition mode. We have a Treasurer who is a shadow Treasurer in drag: he is more interested in talking about the problems of the Australian economy than speaking about the great bipartisan success of two decades of uninterrupted economic growth. As Stephen Koukoulas has pointed out and as Matt Cowgill has articulately pointed out on many occasions, the data give the lie to Mr Hockey's attack on the Australian economy. But his attack on the Australian economy has real consequences. It is not just coalition voters who spend; it is Labor voters too and their consumer confidence is going through the floor.

Australia's biggest challenges are around innovation, around increasing literacy and numeracy scores and around inequality, which has risen through a generation—a generation in which battlers have done worse than billionaires, in which earnings have risen three times as fast for the top 10 per cent as for the bottom 10 per cent, in which the top one per cent income share has doubled and the 0.1 per cent income share has tripled, and in which the richest three Australians have more wealth than the poorest one million Australians. But this budget is a redistributive one—a budget, as John Falzon told a rally for International Cleaners Day in Federation Mall at Parliament House, that takes away from the most vulnerable to give to the most affluent.

They have taken away from the most vulnerable to give to the most affluent. As independent NATSEM research has shown, having taken one-tenth of their income away from the poorest single parents to give to the most affluent Australians, those opposite have the gall to call it class warfare when low-income Australians complain. They do not think it is class warfare when they take money out of the pockets of the poorest single parents in order to give $50,000 to millionaires for a parental leave scheme. They do not think it is class warfare when they cut the pension in order to raise the non-concessional superannuation cap from $150,000 to $180,000. No—they only think it is class warfare when the most vulnerable Australians object to having money taken out of their pockets after a generation of rising inequality. (Time expired)

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