Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Nothing amazes me more than hearing government speakers. They are living in an almost parallel universe. Every Australian remembers the document, Our plan: real solutions for all Australians. Apparently it is:

The direction, values and policy priorities of the next Coalition Government.

They all remember this document and they all remember the appeal to nostalgia that was made by the then opposition, the now government. They remember them offering very easy solutions. Page 15 of the document says the:

… strategy for Australia is to get our finances in order, build a strong growth-powered economy with less debt and make Australia more productive and competitive in the global economy.

And their plan:

… will deliver more jobs, higher real wages and better living standards for all Australians.

Yet, what do we have in this budget? What do we have in the reality of this budget?

Mr Fletcher interjecting—

I will tell the member for Bradfield what we have: taxes up; debt up; deficits up—$17 billion projected, $41 billion popped out the other side; unemployment up. This is the reality as opposed to alternate parallel fantasy world that those opposite live in. And they expect the rest of Australia to go along with it. The member for Bradfield expects his constituents to buy into this fantasy world that the government seeks to illustrate for us all. I can tell you—and we heard the member for Makin talk about this—about the debacle that has occurred in my state of South Australia in our automotive industry, where GMH was chased out of the country at a time when we had a high dollar and all sorts of pressures on automotive exports. We had them chased out of the country by this Treasurer. What happened to the dollar subsequently? It has gone from $1.06 to 80c—to a point at which Holden would quite happily have been exporting to the United States and other places, particularly to the police-car market in the United States. We would have had exports going there, but instead we have an industry that is closing down.

What did we see on subs? We had a promise to have submarines manufactured in Australia, in South Australia. It was a solemn commitment—broken. There were secret deals behind the nation's back with the Japanese Prime Minister—sort of a nudge-nudge, wink-wink—for the FTA. We know that is the case. We know that press releases were prepared for the purchase of a Japanese submarine, to be made in Japan. The irony—the bitter irony—is that they would have had to double the shipyards in Japan to build our submarines. So instead of building them here, we were going to build them there, and they were going to have to build new shipyards. What a tragedy.

What we have from this government is no plan—no plan at all—for jobs. There is nothing in this budget about jobs at all, just wishful thinking. There is a sort of Keynesian pump priming of the economy at a time when there is a global recovery. It is pretty ironic that they are talking about headwinds. They talk about headwinds now, but refuse to acknowledge the global financial crisis a few years ago. There is an interesting confusion on the opposition side. We have seen no investment in infrastructure—

Mr Fletcher interjecting—

There are some very funny interjections from the member for Bradfield. I am quite happy to have them on the record.

There is no investment in infrastructure. They are $2 billion under where they should be. There is no investment in skills and innovation. There is $3 billion cut out of science and a 20 per cent cut in school funding. This is the reality of what the government is doing.

What is the reality on jobs? I can tell you what it is in my state. On 21 April: 'Holden to axe 270 jobs at Elizabeth'. Ninety of those workers are going to be forced redundancies—people who will finish up early because of the actions of this government. If there had been a Labor government—

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