Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The Cayman Islands—that is right! The government could well name them, and that is something that I am sure we can follow up.

The budget not only fails the government's own test of debt and deficit but also fails Labor's tests of whether it deals with growth, innovation and inequality. Labor recognises that our living standards have fallen four per cent since this government came to office, and a budget which rips $1 billion out of infrastructure investment is not going to spur that growth. We recognise that wage inequality has risen, with wages rising three times as fast for the top tenth as for the bottom tenth. And, yet, what are people being offered? There is no tax cut for the bottom three-quarters of workers. Workers earning between $80,000 and $180,00 get a tax cut which is not a sandwich-and-milkshake tax cut but a sandwich-or-milkshake tax cut—a mere $6 a week.

On the subject of innovation in Australia, just six per cent of ASX 300 firms think that they are highly innovative. In the budget we see an entrenchment of cuts to schools, vocational training and universities. It is exactly the opposite of what you would want to lay the plan for strong growth. There is nothing new in the budget about renewable energy, which must be an innovation sector for the Australian economy. This is a budget that is designed to get a political party through an election. It is not an economic statement designed to set a nation up for the decades to come.

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