Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

This is a very important motion because employment security underpins the wellbeing of a nation. Indeed, it is a key indicator of a strong economy. On that score, members opposite and their government have failed miserably, and the Australian public know it and are saying it in spades. Let me just give you a quick contrast between the previous Labor government and this government. The Labor government managed this country during a period of global financial downturn worse than we had seen since the 1930s, and yet we kept the Australian economy growing, we kept unemployment at modest numbers—indeed, much better than in most parts of the world—and we even kept the national debt to a fraction of what it was in other parts of the world. In contrast, when this government came to power it inherited a stable economy, but while other countries like the UK, New Zealand and USA are rebounding from the global financial crisis Australia is sinking downwards. We have seen that with unemployment now hitting 800,000, with 300,000 of those being young people. We see consumer confidence across the country worse than it has been for years, we see an economy at below trend growth of 2.3 per cent and we see the budget deficit doubled in the last year alone.

The Abbott government has mismanaged the economy, destroyed national confidence and imposed short-sighted austerity measures which are, in fact, failing the Australian people. We have seen billions of dollars cut from programs that go to the heart of jobs growth, productivity gains and efficiencies, scaring consumers and business alike. Indeed, we have seen $2 billion cut from skills programs alone. We have had $3 billion cut from science, research and innovation programs across Australia. That includes $846 million in industry support programs, including successful programs like Enterprise Connect and Commercialisation Australia. One of the worst and starkest stupidities of this government is its rollout of the NBN; a slower, more costly and behind schedule rollout than we would have had under Labor. Everyone in Australian knows that the NBN is vital infrastructure to productivity and jobs growth in this country except members opposite. Indeed, I get it all the time: 'What dopey ministers does this government have that simply do not get the importance of a high-speed NBN rollout to Australia's future?'

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