Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

When the member for Warringah lost the prime ministership, there was a sigh of relief across Australia, because they heard what the new Prime Minister said. They heard that there would be a new style of leadership, that there would be good government, that there would be sound policies, that there would be advocacy, not slogans, and that he would respect the intelligence of the Australian people. They heard him say that there needed to be new economic leadership in Australia. What we have seen is five and a half months of disappointment. Every time there has been a requirement for leadership, the new Prime Minister has gone limp and his government has gone limp.

If you think about the international expectations of the new Prime Minister, he came in at a time when Australia was preparing to go to the Paris climate change conference. All of those Australians who thought, 'Thank God; our climate change policies will change now. We have someone who said of this government's policies that they were a 'fig leaf' to cover up a determination to do nothing about climate change,' did we get the change of policy that they expected? We got nothing. We got no improvement. We were the only country to go to the Paris climate change talks going backwards—taking effective measures against climate change and reversing them.

Look at other areas. We had the Australia in the Asian century white paper when we were in government. Have we seen leadership from those opposite in replacing that white paper with a vision of their own? Nothing. We have seen the chaos of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, where one part of the frontbench was fighting the other part of the frontbench about the idea that we needed infrastructure investment in the Asia-Pacific region. So many people hoped that the new Prime Minister would be better than the old Prime Minister when it came to the aid budget. Not a single change.

But it is not just internationally that people's hopes have been dashed. Look at what has happened to Australia domestically. We had a Prime Minister who came in with such high hopes. People thought that he could not be much worse than the fellow that he replaced. He promised new economic leadership. He said, 'No slogans. We'll engage in the debate. Everything's on the table. We'll have intelligent conversations. We'll have debate, not slogans.' What have we had? We have had nothing but scare campaigns and slogans. Yesterday, we heard the Prime Minister say that our policies were going to send a wrecking ball through the Australian economy. What did that remind me of? I was actually expecting to hear today that Whyalla would be wiped off the face of the map. I was expecting to hear today that our negative-gearing policies were going to push up lamb prices to $100 for a leg of lamb.

We heard a few short months ago that everything was on the table. First of all, the GST was on the table because the government had to fix the debt and deficit disaster. This was the biggest priority for the Australian economy. The GST: squibbed it, fell over, puff of wind. Those opposite squibbed it at the first opposition from their own backbench. So then they said, 'Well, let's look at some of the other areas.' We heard from the former Treasurer as he was leaving that negative gearing, capital gains tax and the housing industry were some of the areas that the government should be looking at. The minute Labor made a positive and detailed policy proposal, those opposite went: no, it was on the table but not any more.

The government cannot even get their scare campaign right. We have got a Prime Minister who is saying that we cannot to do this because it will smash confidence and it will smash property prices. We have got an Assistant Treasurer who is saying that in fact property prices will go through the roof. People have to be frightened because their home values are going to go down and they are going to go up—they should be frightened of both.

What is so very disappointing about this is the reputations that these people came to the parliament with. The Prime Minister arrived with his reputation for supporting action on climate change, supporting real debate about the economic future of this nation, supporting issues like marriage equality. People thought that Malcolm Turnbull would change the Liberal Party but it is the Liberal Party that has changed Malcolm Turnbull. They have made him a carbon copy of the previous Prime Minister. But it is not just his reputation that has been dashed in the last few months.

The Treasurer came to the office of Treasurer after fighting and clawing and knifing his way into that job by betraying the former Prime Minister. When he finally got there, he looked around and said, 'I am here now. Oh oh, I have got no agenda. What am I going to do?' The man who was such a tough guy when it came to talking tough on refugees and not letting people attend funerals—you all remember the record there—then transferred that skill set to talking tough against disability pensioners and their carers. He came to the Treasurer's position with such a reputation for being a tough guy but today he is in witness protection. He did not even get Dorothy Dixers about the economy today; he got Dorothy Dixers about Senate voting reform because they do not want to let him talk about the economy. He had 46 minutes to talk about the economy at the Press Club last week. I do not know if anybody watched it but it was the most excruciating 46 minutes of nothing that we have ever seen.

The Assistant Treasurer also came with a little bit of a reputation, and people were delighted to see a bit of a restoration of gender balance on the front bench of the government. Oh my goodness, that press conference today. We all got the talking points. We get the talking points every day. The press gallery all get the talking points, don't they? They are widely distributed talking points. I am very surprised that the Assistant Treasurer does not get the talking points because she clearly did not. Instead of supporting her Prime Minister's scare campaign about housing prices, she completely undermined it.

We have got hopes dashed, reputations destroyed and the new leadership that was promised missing in action. You do not just see it in areas of economic leadership, where debt and deficit are up, unemployment is up and confidence is down. First everything was on the table and now nothing is on the table. First GST was going to happen and now it is not. Negative gearing and capital gains tax were on the table; now they are not. Tax reform in other areas was originally on the table and is now off the table.

What we have seen is a government in chaos, lacking leadership and failing the test of leadership at every stage. We have got a scare campaign about house prices. It is incredible to listen to a government that cares more about people buying their seventh home or their 30th home than it does about people buying their first home. We have heard not a single word from those opposite about housing affordability or what first home buyers might do to get into the market. In the 1980s, we saw well over half of 25 to 34-year-olds buying their first home. Since the 1980s, that proportion has fallen by 25 per cent. These are ordinary people with an ordinary job who cannot buy an ordinary home any longer, and we have got a government that has not got a single thing to say about those people. They do not want to buy their 30th investment property; they want to buy a first home—a part of the great Australian dream. The Prime Minister is talking about how important homeownership is to people's economic security. We agree that it is and we agree that young Australians who took the former Treasurer's advice, who went out and got a good job, still cannot afford an ordinary home. This government has got no answers for them.

We have a Prime Minister who talks extensively about the need for innovation. You cannot have innovation without education. We heard people saying to him at the beginning: what are you going to do about the Gonski school education funding reforms? What was his answer? The Prime Minister's answer was, 'David Gonski and I are very good friends. David and Gonski and I have known each other for 50 years—he was at my last birthday party.' It has not changed the decision to cut $30 billion from school education and it has not cut the decision to go for $100,000 university degrees, it has not changed the decision to attack TAFE and it has not changed the decision to undermine preschool funding, particularly for the poorest kids in Australia. We know what early childhood education means. And it has not changed the decision to sack 350 staff from the CSIRO doing some of the most important and most innovative work in this country.

You cannot have innovation without education and you cannot have innovation without supporting our scientists at world renowned institutions like the CSIRO. It has been a disappointment, a shambles. All of those people were sitting in middle Australia thinking, 'Thank God Tony Abbott is gone.' What have they been left with? They have been left with Tony Abbott in a different suit—same tie; that is the only difference.

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