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

How is it funded—asks the member for Gorton, as well he might, because the government has no clue. So they can afford $65 billion worth of corporate tax cuts—no problem They can afford the money for high-income tax cuts—no problem. Can they afford the money for schools? No, they cannot afford that.

And of course the other bit of bad economic news that we have had lately is the fact that wages growth continues at a record low—in fact, I am being small-l liberal with my language when I call it wages growth; because it is not growing at all. Real wages are going backwards. It is negative growth. People are not keeping up with inflation, and the government, yet again, has a cunning plan. They have worked it all out: their answer to negative wages growth is to cut wages further on 1 July.

The member for Higgins would be proud. Remember when she said that the negative gearing policy is going to put house prices up and the Prime Minister said they were going to go down? She might have come up with a policy to cut wages as a response to falling real wages.

This government, at its core, lacks a comprehensive and comprehensible economic agenda. Their only agenda is to look after people who they regard as the most important people in Australia—high-income earners. We have nothing against people earning a good income but we want people making a fair contribution. When the budget is under such pressure, we want people to make a contribution which they can afford to do, as they have done now since 2014 when this government introduced the deficit levy. Has Western civilisation ended for the last few years? Have people refused to turn up at work because the tax rate is too high? Have people refused to engage in economic activity? No. This government's priorities are all wrong, and 1 July is the day it will be shown they are— (Time expired)

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