Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Sorry, Deputy Speaker Broadbent. I will put down that work of fiction. It does not matter who they choose because we saw after the election what they really stand for. They do not believe in Medicare; instead, they have embraced a GP tax. They do not believe in accessible higher education for all; instead, they want $100,000 degrees—this dumb but rich policy. They are embracing ball-and-chain degrees that will not give opportunity but instead will cramp Australia's opportunities. We believe in affordable quality child care, not prohibitive fees and cuts to family payments.

We always need to contrast how the situation was when they come into power. We had not just sold Telstra off and had an extra $70 billion in the bank. Let's look at the world when they came to power back in September 2013. The Australian stock exchange was trading at a five-year high—we came through the financial crisis; GDP was running at 2.6 per cent; unemployment was at 5.7 per cent; inflation is not a significant problem at the moment obviously but it was at 2.4 per cent. We had a AAA credit rating provided by all three ratings agencies. We had had 22 years of continuous economic growth largely due to the tough economic decisions made by the Hawke and Keating government, not that Mr Costello made any difficult decisions—he just said 'spend everything that we make from selling hard earned, publicly owned assets'. We had created one million jobs. We were rated by the OECD as one of the best and happiest countries in the world. We had the highest median wealth in the world, at $193,563. We had low interest rates, also not a problem at the moment. And gross government debt, when you compare it to all of the other OECD nations, was well and truly under control.

Here at the beginning of 2015, we are not going to spend a lot of time highlighting the problems and inadequacies of the Abbott government. Obviously that task has been outsourced to the leakers and the 39 backbenchers and the gathering gang of cabinet ministers. They will be talking about how bad the government is. They will be the ones talking about how the Prime Minister is not up to the job and Treasurer Hockey is definitely not up to the job. I think everyone recognises that the Prime Minister's 18-month-long audition for season 6 of The Walking Dead is finally coming to an end.

Instead, while those opposite, the rabble opposite, implode and take those rusted-on mugs the Nationals with them, we the Labor Party will be consulting with the community, working on our policy ideas and consulting with the economic experts, the academics, the health experts, the scientific experts. 'Scientists'—there is a word that does not get heard often by those opposite, but we believe in scientists, especially when it comes to addressing climate change.

Those opposite promised that they would run a stable and united government, but all we have seen is chaos. We have seen disunity. We have seen Australian families suffer. We have seen the Australian economy suffer. We have seen small businesses—their safe space in any economy—suffering most of all. And all of Australia is paying the price because of this.

I know what happens when a government says one thing before an election and then does something different after it. I come from Queensland. We saw what happened there, where a Premier said one thing before the election and then did the opposite. The people of Queensland are waiting. They have their baseball bats cleaned up, nice and shiny. They are waiting. I know that the rest of Australia will have an opportunity also to say, 'This is what we think of a government that says one thing before an election and then does something different after.'

I think one of the great travesties that we have not shone a light on because there is so much dysfunction and chaos opposite is how manufacturing has suffered under this government. I know that the member for Wakefield has been very passionate about that. The Treasurer had an opportunity to look after production in terms of cars. The Prime Minister and the former Minister for Defence made a commitment to manufacturing in terms of submarines, but then it turned out to be hollow words, deception. He was prepared to ramp it up just to get a couple of extra votes in the ballot, but when it came to delivering on his commitment he was shown to be a completely hollow man.

Look at the other drums they are beating in the corners that they can find: penalty rates and driving down wages, even though real wage growth is, I think, the lowest it has ever been. But still the Minister for Employment is saying wage explosions are a problem. This is the guy paid to be the minister, and he contradicts the information given to him.

We saw in Queensland that people do care about governments. We will hold them to account. We always have. The people have always held governments to account in all democracies, going back 2,000 or 3,000 years.

We need those opposite, the Liberal Party, to change this budget, especially as they come up to preparing the next budget, which is not too far away. Obviously we are focused on policies that support living standards, support jobs and help families, but you need to do that in the context of a growing economy. Sadly, they have missed a great opportunity to boost productivity. Instead, they put a handbrake on the economy.

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