Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The government scoffs. They mock. They engage in their childish games. And, as they have done so, more than 114,000 Australians have joined the unemployment queue. We have got youth unemployment, which can soberly, carefully, objectively be called a crisis, because it is at 13.8 per cent. There are 300,000 young Australians unemployed—young Australians who should be getting into the labour market, who should be building their skills and building their experience. Instead, they are engaged in soul-destroying youth unemployment, which sees their self-esteem attacked, which sees their opportunity evaporating, which sees them thrown on the scrap heap in their younger years—the dispiriting scourge of youth unemployment. Yet, we get this Treasurer who insults them and simply says: go get a better paying job. That is his economic plan: go get a better paying job.

Well, he needs to go get a jobs plan. He needs to go get a plan for a better and stronger economy. That is what this Treasurer needs to do. Sometimes international events can see unemployment go up. Sometimes there are global recessions and unemployment goes up, and a Treasurer and a government is limited in what they can do. But we have been through that period. We went through that period of the global financial crisis, and unemployment did not top six per cent once during the global financial crisis in Australia. It certainly topped six per cent elsewhere. We saw the UK at eight per cent, the US at 10 per cent and Canada at nine per cent. But in all those countries unemployment is now coming down as Australia's unemployment rate continues to go up. We see unemployment coming down right around the world but going up in Australia on this Treasurer's watch. That is the circumstance we are faced with in Australia. That is the circumstance that unemployed people are faced with.

What the government are doing is having rhetoric-led recovery. They are strong on the rhetoric. They have lots of things to say about our economy. They have plans to do all sorts of things. Let us go through a few of those. We know on this side of the House that one of the areas in which you can create jobs, one of the areas with good paying jobs and in which jobs of the future can be created is a thing called 'renewable energy'. There are these wind turbines, which are apparently a blight against humanity according to some. The Treasurer has declared war on them. He hates them. They are ugly compared to all of the things he loves, but they actually can create jobs, as can solar technology. Renewable energy right around the country is creating jobs, and this government hate it—and they have wrecked it. We have gone from being one of the top four countries in the world for investment in renewable energy under the previous Labor government to 10th under this government. Their prejudice against science and renewable energy has wrecked renewable energy. The Labor Party—the member for Port Adelaide, the member for Brand and I—had to step in and negotiate a better renewable energy target to save them from their own incompetence.

Then we have infrastructure. Remember we have the infrastructure Prime Minister! We also have the Indigenous affairs Prime Minister! Those are both areas that he has cut. He is the minister for women as well! During question time we saw the approach to taxation from the Treasurer and from the Prime Minister for women as well. Two years ago yesterday, the then Leader of the Opposition said:

What we want to do is build, build, build so that there are jobs, jobs, jobs for Australians.

What he has done is nothing, nothing, nothing! We have had nothing, nothing, nothing from the Prime Minister. We have public spending on infrastructure at 3½ per cent of GDP. That is just barely above the record lows since records began. In 2010—just five years ago—it was 5½ per cent. Under this infrastructure Prime Minister, it is 3½ per cent! There is no plan there to build jobs.

Then we have the Treasurer, old 'huff and puff'! Remember we had the G20 in Australia? It was a good thing. It was secured by the previous Labor government and held in Brisbane. It was a good thing to have the G20 here, but the Treasurer could not help himself. He went out and puffed his chest, and he said: 'I have reached an historic agreement. I have got every finance minister in the world to agree that we are going to add growth to the world economy.' They had not thought of it before coming to Brisbane! It had not occurred to them that it was a good idea! They needed this Treasurer to explain it to them! He said: 'This is historic—a great step forward. We are going to add two per cent to growth.' What has happened? Nothing, nothing, nothing yet again. It was all words. Joe Hockey's great global plan for growth, which he engineered, has turned out to be absolutely nothing.

This is a government that is completely bereft of ideas and of a plan for jobs and growth. They talk about it; they do not understand it. They do not understand the need to plan for the future. They do not understand the need to plan for jobs of the future. On this side of the House, we understand the challenges and the opportunities. We know that 40 per cent of all Australian jobs are at risk from automation over the next 15 years—that is five million jobs which may not exist by 2030—but new jobs will be created. Australian people should be optimistic. New jobs will be created. The question is: will we be creating young people who can win those jobs, who are skilled to get those jobs and who can create the jobs in an age of entrepreneurialism? Can they do that? This government certainly cannot. When we have outlined plans to teach coding in school, to lift the qualifications of teachers in maths, and to give young people the chance to study science, technology, engineering and maths debt-free through our university system, what did this Prime Minister do? He said, 'This is outrageous. You are going to teach children to code and program. What do you want to do? Send them to work at age 11?' That is his answer for jobs of the future. He is so completely stuck in the past that he does not understand that encouraging young people to learn, and teaching them about, science, technology, engineering and maths helps them to prepare for the jobs of the future and that it helps them to prepare for a rapidly changing world.

This is a Prime Minister who is so stuck in the past, so stuck in previous decades, that he does not understand the opportunities that are arising for Australia. Instead, we have a Prime Minister and a Treasurer who mock, who scorn and who insult. They tell Australians, 'Go get a better paying job.' They tell Australians, 'Poor people do not drive cars.' They tell Australians: 'We all need to tighten our belts. The age of entitlement is over.' They divide Australians between lifters and leaners. Australians deserve better than that. They deserve a government which unites Australians. They deserve a government which concentrates on the opportunities for the future. They deserve a government which has a plan for infrastructure; has a plan for science, technology, engineering and maths; has a plan for job creation; and has an optimistic focus on the future. They deserve a government that is not stuck in the past, that is not stuck in division and that is not stuck with insults, like this failed Treasurer is. They deserve a government that actually understands that Australia's best years can be ahead of us. The best years of those 800,000 unemployed Australians can be ahead of them, but they will not be ahead of them when they have a Prime Minister and a Treasurer who simply do not understand what it means to have a jobs plan for Australia. They do not understand the opportunities. All that they understand is division, prejudice and, most of all, chaos.

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