Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

In their stupendous arrogance they think that if they apply a smug, self-satisfied coat of paint on the same policies that nobody will notice. In their breathtaking arrogance they think they can say one thing to one group of Australians and another thing to another group of Australians, and that they will not be found out. In their astounding arrogance they think they can change the soundtrack but not the movie and that people will stand up and applaud.

The unfortunate truth for Australia is that the nation now has a Prime Minister who has spent his entire career pretending to be something that he is not. For as long as we can remember, this is a man who has put the 'con' in 'conviction'. It began so long ago when he was sitting down with Richo trying to get a Labor Senate seat in the mid-1990s, when he was all for the Labor Party and he was ready to do a deal with Richo to be on our side of the parliament, in the red house. When there was political capital in believing in a republic or believing in climate change or in marriage equality, he was all for it. When it was an opportunity to differentiate himself from the Prime Minister, he was all for it. But now there is no price that he would not pay for the job he now occupies. His suite of policies is indistinguishable from that of the man he replaced. The next thing we know he will be trying to squeeze himself awkwardly into those little red swimmers. He is so like the man that he replaced. There was the embarrassing display in question time today when he stood up and said, 'Oh, no, these pathetic emissions targets that we've announced—I'm all for those,' and, 'Do you know what? I don't think we should have a conscience vote on marriage equality anymore,' and, 'Do you know what? All of the things that I pretended to believe in, I no longer believe in.'

He wants Australians to believe that if he changes the colour of his tie from light blue to purple then people will forget this disastrous government and all of its policies. But they will not forget that he went on radio and said, 'I support, unreservedly and wholeheartedly, every element in the budget—every single one.' They will not forget that he stood at that dispatch box and said, 'But of course every single member of the government supported every element in the budget.' He supports cuts to pensions, to schools, to hospitals, to families, to carers, to veterans. He supports the attacks on Medicare, the $100,000 degrees, the cuts to the ABC and the SBS—the whole thing. He is in full-throated agreement with every single part of that disaster.

He said yesterday that the government has not been successful in providing economic leadership. The member for North Sydney said straight after that that he has never said to the member for North Sydney or to the cabinet that we are heading in the wrong economic direction. He has even disowned the comments that he made not 24 hours ago. He is just as responsible for the smoking policy ruin as any other member on that side of the House. His fingerprints are on every aspect of that disaster: unemployment up, underemployment up, youth unemployment up, debt up, deficit up, growth down, confidence down and wages down. And he has made his own unique contribution to this cacophony of catastrophes with an NBN which is half as good as ours and cost twice as much money. What a disaster!

He wants us to believe that everything has changed now that he has come to the rescue, but nothing has changed. Nothing has changed when it comes to the policy agenda of those opposite. It is not a reset; it is a rerun. The policies are the same. The dog-eat-dog ideology is the same. The message to Australians that you are all on your own to fend for yourselves is the same—the same trickle-down economics that says that if we accumulate lots of wealth at the very top of society then maybe some people at the very bottom will get the scraps, but probably not.

Australians are not fooled by this smug, self-satisfied coat of paint that those opposite are trying to apply to the policy disasters that they have piled up over two years in government. Australians know that you do not fix a catastrophe with cosmetics. Australians need real change. Our quarter-century of remarkable economic growth is at real risk if we continue down the wrong path that those opposite are walking Australia down. The Leader of the Opposition is right: as a nation we have to decide whether we get smarter or we get poorer. If we want to get smarter, we have to invest in science and technology. We have to teach and train our people for the jobs of the future. We have to grow our economy so that there is enough opportunity and enough prosperity to go around. They will not get that agenda from that side of the House, no matter who leads them. They will get that agenda from this side of the House, and the next election cannot come soon enough.

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