Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

A year ago, in almost Churchillian rhetoric, as though it was the Dunkirk situation, the Treasurer commented:

There are no choices here. This is about the sustainability of our quality of life. It is about what we want to be in five, 10, 20 years' time.

In another outburst in June 2013, he noted:

It will be my number one imperative to safeguard the economy against a significant downturn and to turbo charge economic growth and jobs.

A year later, he is a very much reduced man—very few cigars in sight. Part of the problem of last year's budget was summarised very well by Richard Farmer in The Saturday Paper in April 2014. He said:

Before Hockey, treasurers had economic advisers more sceptical of pleading from business – much more so than could now be expected from those who have made their way wheeling and dealing for the rent seekers.

Further, he said:

When Hockey delivered Re:thinkBetter tax, better Australia, he employed the Coalition’s preferred method of delivering policy: eschew details in favour of three-word slogans.

With the politicisation of Treasury and calling in people who have come from the corporate sector, is it any wonder that he very quickly dismisses the concept of doing anything about corporate tax evasion by overseas corporations and comes up with the brilliant idea that we should lower taxes so that we have less evasion? As I say, he is a very reduced figure.

It is interesting to note, in the politicisation of this whole process, that one of the organisations that very much commended this budget was the Business Council of Australia. They commended this budget but they also commended last year's budget, which was diametrically different. Last year they said:

The 2014–15 federal budget is a solid start to putting the fiscal strategy back on track, but there is much more work to do to support growth and deliver a sustainable budget position for the long term …

They talked about 'improving the effectiveness of the social services delivered by the government'. So last year we had the Business Council commending a draconian budget which attempted—and the government is still trying to do these things—to cut $5.5 billion from family tax benefits; to have Australians work until they are 70; to make pensioners to pay more for transport, gas, electricity and council rates; and to cause seniors to be $900 a year worse off by abolishing the seniors supplement.

The Business Council, in typical political fashion as an apologist for the government, last year said that these attacks were very valuable and this year, when the government tries to run a political agenda, that they are now soft and cuddly and more considerate, and are still trying to enhance the government's position. But he is not only undermined by the obvious way in which he has politicised the Intergenerational report but criticised by all sides of the political spectrum as this budget has been described by all and sundry as very much about politics rather than the economy.

The arguments that were there last year are still there, and what we have seen is a total U-turn. Adele Ferguson in The Sydney Morning Heraldsaid:

It is hard to believe this is the same government that authored last year's "budget emergency" that split the population into "lifters" and "leaners" and called an end to "the age of entitlement".

Ross Gittins commented:

This is the budget of a badly rattled government that has put self-preservation ahead of economic responsibility. It will do much to restore Tony Abbott's political fortunes, but next to nothing to return the budget to surplus or hasten the economy's return to strong growth.

So commentators have clearly seen that this rhetoric, which is comparable to the attempt to terrify the Australian population on security and terrorism, was to terrorise them last year by this urgent crisis that dictated attacking pensioners' indexation, forcing young people to have no means of support for six months in unemployment, and others to go onto youth allowance because of their age—all those things were justified last year on the basis of a crisis that allegedly does not have to be dealt with this year.

However, the figures are not at all comforting in any way for this government. Unemployment is now 6.5 per cent—I admit that it is up there with John Howard; it is not novel necessarily under a conservative government and it has happened before. We have a deficit that is doubling from 17.1 to 35.1 billion and a situation where spending is 29 per cent and government is increasing it by 1.8 per cent a year compared to 1.3 per cent under Labor, which had to deal with the global financial crisis and spent money to make sure that the Centrelink payments were not going to go up throughout the country through trainees being forced out of their jobs, apprentices thrown on the roadside, businesses closing down and consumers not being able to purchase. The government then had to do something about the crisis, and those opposite had no consideration, no integrity and no honesty about the crisis that the government faced.

Yet now, we see the Treasurer trying to excuse himself and his performance solely on the situation in China and the collapse of the raw materials sector. Obviously, it has had a very deep impact on tax revenue for this country—the fact that that has happened; the fact that the building sector in China has declined. We did not have the same attempt a few years ago to look at this rationally and see the actual economic realities internationally. We did not attempt to say: 'This is all squandering by the previous government, inept spending et cetera.' There has got to be also some doubts about projections by this government with regard to mining investment: they say it will fall to 25.2 per cent by the end of the financial year and 30.5 per cent by 2016-17.

Their solution to that is the rather dubious claim that non-mining investment will zoom past its long-term average annual growth of 6.7 per cent and be 7.5 per cent by 2016-17. They are trying to convince people that that growth of non-mining investment will go to historically unprecedented levels, and yet it is at two per cent today. We have a situation where they talk about wage growth, which has been widely criticised. Wage growth is just matching inflation, and yet their expectation is that over this period of time there will be a significant growth there. This is a country whose administration is trying to basically ensure the unions are shackled, that they are restricted in their activity around the place and yet they are hoping for—

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