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

Of course, the Treasurer had a cunning plan to deal with this. He went off to the G20—quite appropriately, he represented Australia at the G20—and he was asked about this. He was asked why Australia now has lower growth than the rest of the world after having boasted earlier that Australia had higher growth. He said, 'Well, world growth would be so much lower if it wasn't for me, because at the G20 in Brisbane I told all the other finance ministers they've got to go for growth and they've got to add growth to the global economy.' Of course, they had not thought of that themselves! This came as a great revelation to the finance ministers of the world! They needed the Treasurer of Australia to tell them to go for growth! As he was lecturing the rest of the world, he forgot about his own country. He was in Turkey, but he was behaving like a goose, as he does here in Australia. He lectures everybody else, but he gets it wrong himself. He knows less about the world economy than he does about the Australian economy, and that is a pretty big call, but he was happy to lecture everybody else.

We were always told it was going to be so different. Remember what the Prime Minister said? This is a direct quote—the Assistant Treasurer loves these direct quotes:

Now, I believe that the Coalition I lead understands all of this in the marrow of its bones and that's why I am confident that should there be a change of government later in the year, there will be an instantaneous adrenaline charge in our economy.

An opposition member: That sounds good.

That does sound good, doesn't it? That sounds like a great result—an adrenaline charge. Well, what have we got? Unemployment has increased from 5.7 to 6.3 per cent, and is now at a 13-year high. For the first time in more than 20 years, 800,000 Australians are out of work. Consumer sentiment is 10 per cent below where it was at the time of the last election. We have had the budget deficit double in just the last 12 months. And, of course, growth is lower in Australia than in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and Greece. On this Treasurer's watch, economic growth is lower than in Greece. Just today, we saw that business confidence, measured by the National Australia Bank survey, fell again. It has fallen from plus eight to just plus one in recent months. The Treasurer's favourite preferred index, ANZ consumer confidence, has fallen 5.8 per cent, the largest fall in several years, all on this Treasurer's watch.

We know why confidence is so low in the Australian economy. It is because confidence is so low in the Australian Treasurer. There is a pretty clear correlation. When his cabinet does not have confidence in the Treasurer, why should the Australian people have confidence in the Australian Treasurer? We have the mixed messages about the Australian economy. We have gone from budget deficits, a debt and deficit disaster and budget emergencies to now, when the urgent moral prerogative of the age is to provide personal income tax cuts. We have had the insults to the Australian people, in the debate about housing affordability, about getting a better and better paying job. We have had the wrecking of the renewable energy industry in Australia by this Treasurer, because he drives from Sydney to Canberra—as I do and as many honourable members do—past the wind turbines. They are so unattractive, apparently, to the Treasurer. He says he finds them offensive. Lake George would look so much better with a nuclear reactor in it, the Treasurer always says. That is why he has decided to wreck the renewable energy industry in Australia and wreck the jobs that go with it. We have gone from being the world's largest and best investor in renewable energy to being way down the league table on this Treasurer and this Prime Minister's watch. Why? Because of prejudice—prejudice against renewable energy; prejudice against science.

Of course, we have had the insults to Australia's pensioners, who were told 'they have never had it so good'. 'In net terms out of the budget, it is strongly arguable that pensioners are going to be better off,' the Treasurer told the pensioners of Australia in August 2014. They will be better off by cutting the pension—he thinks the Australian people are stupid. He thinks the Australian people and Australia's pensioners will believe that cutting the pension from 27 per cent of average weekly earnings to 16 per cent of average weekly earnings will make them better off. He was astounded to learn that the pensioners of Australia disagree, and so do the Australian people.

No wonder they have lost confidence in this Treasurer. No wonder the government has lost confidence in this Treasurer. No wonder the Treasurer's tenure is speculated upon—because he is not up to the job. We see this speculation about the Treasurer's role. We see this speculation about the Treasurer leaving the job, and I say the Treasurer should leave the job at the next election when replaced on the election of a Labor government—not by the Assistant Treasurer, not by the Minister for Social Services and not by the Minister for Communications but by a Labor Treasurer who will actually deliver a budget which implements election promises and which implements a program for which a mandate has been sought at an election. That is what the Australian people so desperately need and what the Australian economy so desperately needs. It needs a Treasurer who does not engage in the insults, in dividing Australians between lifters and leaners and in inaccurate statements about bulk-billing rates in his own electorate and about how Australia's high-income households pay half their income in tax, as he told us a little while ago. He told the Australian people that high-income earners pay half their income in tax. There is this thing called marginal tax, which the Treasurer has some difficulty in understanding.

Is it any wonder that the Australian people, just like the Minister for Foreign Affairs, have long ago lost confidence in this Treasurer?

No wonder they long ago lost confidence in this Treasurer and this government. But we are paying a price for it as a nation. On this Treasurer's watch we have seen unemployment up, investment down, growth down and confidence down. The only things that have gone up on this Treasurer's watch are the deficit and unemployment. It is the complete opposite of what the Australian people were told. The Treasurer must take some personal responsibility for this. When the growth figures in Australia are not enough to see unemployment come down, we do not want to see him lecturing the world's finance ministers about how they have got to go for growth. Ironically enough, if not for government spending in the last quarter we would have seen a negative quarter on this Treasurer's watch.

This Treasurer was very strong on rhetoric before the last election. He was very strong at criticising others. He had all the answers at his disposal. It was all going to become so much better when he became Treasurer—but it has all become so much worse. It is time for the Treasurer of Australia to go—but not by the hand of his Prime Minister withholding a rose from him at reshuffle time. It is time for the Treasurer to go when this government is cast into history as a failure which stood for nothing, delivered nothing and was elected in an election of deception.

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