Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the continuing hypocrisy of this government's attacks on the lowest paid and most vulnerable in my electorate, whilst helping out big business and the highest earners. A lot of people in my electorate and across the country are still waiting for the 'jobs and growth' that they were promised at the last election. So where is it? And they may well ask. While they feel the pain of continuing cuts, unemployment, record-low wages growth and the highest levels of inequality that we have seen in 75 years, they switch on the news and see a government telling ordinary Australians that it is really interested in their problems, on one hand, but in reality it is either helping the big end of town or focussing on itself. It is the height of arrogance.

People in my area see a government that is attacking working conditions and reducing the take-home pay of one in seven workers. They see a government that has continued to prevaricate on issues like housing affordability, a government that continues to undermine the fundamentals of affordable health care in this country and a government whose ministers, when asked about the solution to many of these problems, seem to think the answer is that this is what ordinary Australians deserve and it is really easy to get a good-paying job. Statements like this exemplify this government's arrogance.

Like much of Western Sydney, my community saw through this government at the last election. They were not fooled by the three-word slogans and arcane trickle-down promises. They sent a clear message that they had had it with the arrogance that they had seen in 2013. Of course, it would be too much to think that these people on the other side would have listened. Instead, this government remains determined to reduce services that our most vulnerable rely on, like schools, pensions and health, while also directly attacking wages by cutting penalty rates to our lowest-paid workers. People are being sold short by this government, and they know it. These pressures are being felt every day in households in my area. People work hard to put food on their table and send their kids to school, spending long hours in distant commutes and missing out on the simple joys of spending time with them. Yet this government is increasing that pressure. It thinks that it is reasonable to expect them to lose more of their precious time at home. Families are already being hurt, and this government is now seeking to make it worse.

The consolation that struggling families will be given for their pain is the knowledge that a tax cut in the order of $50 billion is going to the top end of town. This government thinks it is reasonable to make life worse for so many in my electorate and reward the big banks, who have been consistently caught out in scandal after scandal, with bad investment advice and nonpayment of life insurance. I do not think a single parent trying to put their children through school, or a TAFE student who relies on penalty rates, would agree—for example, in 2017, results for the CBA show a half-yearly profit of $4,895 million, an increase of six per cent on the previous year. Similarly, ANZ and Westpac are up by eight per cent when compared to previous results. Yet these are all the same banks that have raised their home-loan interest rates outside the Reserve Bank decision and that have credit card interest rates that have been widely cited as being well above anything that would pass a pub test.

What will a tax cut like this do for families, pensioners and the unemployed in my electorate? Nothing. Just bigger profit margins for the banks and big business and a higher return for their shareholders. What it will not do is put food on the table, pay for school books, help people get to work or make housing any less expensive. What it will do is exacerbate inequality, accelerating the already widening income gap. Quite simply, ordinary Australians are being made worse off so that this government can help their mates at the top end of town.

To make matters worse, if my constituents do not have any money left over after they pay their bills, school fees, rent or mortgage and other essential living expenses, the lower wages resulting from the cut in penalty rates will mean that the economy is not going to get any better. Businesses both large and small are not going to grow if we have nothing extra to spend. Money does not trickle down, as the Treasurer would have you believe. We have to support the people who need it because that is what a compassionate society does.

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