Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

That was remarkable—to hear that someone could defend one of the banks that have just committed 53,000 money laundering offences in this nation. It's an outrage that you would defend them under those circumstances. But, to return to the topic, I rise today to speak on this government's failure to provide real leadership on the Australian economy. This lacklustre, listless leadership—and perhaps 'Deputy-Prime-Minister-less' Liberal-National government—seems intent on pursuing issues that have long been resolved in the hearts and minds of Australians. Instead of facing the economic challenges that pile higher every day and affect ordinary Australians every day, they bicker. Instead of holding an ordinary parliamentary vote on the Marriage Act, they are subjecting Australia to a ridiculous household survey. Instead of investing in new industries like information technology and renewable energy, instead of focusing on providing Australians with affordable water and power and instead of developing and prosecuting economic policy to redress the acknowledged rising inequality, this government has chosen to pick fights with, of all places, New Zealand.

While I'm on leadership, I observe that it takes some kind of foreign policy leadership to turn the negligent omission and wilful blindness to our Constitution of the maybe member for New England and maybe Deputy Prime Minister into a diplomatic incident with our very good friends and neighbours in New Zealand. It's appalling. I ask: where is the direction and who is running this place? I know it's pretty hard to tell. It would appear the Prime Minister's chair is pretty hotly contested. There are a number of members wheeling around there. There is the member for Warringah, of course; the member for Dickson; and the member for Wentworth himself. It's quite a crowd. I'm sure there'll be some room soon.

In talking about leadership, it's all well and good for the Liberal Party to take the high ground, as always. They call themselves 'better economic managers', that title they gifted themselves that no-one else would. They have howled and screamed and stamped their feet, crying, 'It's Labor! Labor put us in this mess, the debt and deficit nightmares.' I remember those days. I was here. I watched it. The members opposite drove their agenda of fear and despair into the homes of every Australian. Who tripled the deficit, Mr Deputy Speaker? Four years later they are still in government, still looking over their shoulder and spouting the same message. It gets weaker every day in the face of that tripling of the deficit of this nation.

I urge everyone to take a look at every economic speech made by the Treasurer and every answer he has given here in question time. How long does it take before the speech starts to blame Labor for just about everything? It's not long. It's anywhere between 10 and 60 seconds, maybe a couple of minutes. In fact, I'm surprised Labor hasn't been blamed for the Deputy Prime Minister's very recent New Zealand citizenship. That's right—I think they did blame Labor. Not only have the Liberal government blamed the Australian Labor Party but also they've blamed the New Zealand Labour Party. It's a farce. At what point do this Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister stand up and take responsibility for these issues of omission and negligence? At what point does the Treasurer stand up and take responsibility for the economic mess and nonsense he is spreading?

They have gone on and on about their superior skills in economic management. Let's take a look at what's really going on with the deflated proposals they have put before us. We're just over a year into this lacklustre government and there are serious questions that need to be addressed. They affect constituents in Brand as well as constituents across every electorate of this country. Wages growth is stagnant. We've all heard that often. In some places there's a decline. Of course, it's not helped by a cut in penalty rates for over 700,000 Australians, 10,000 of whom are in Brand. Jobs growth is slow and is discouraged by the lack of policy direction and leadership from this limp federal government.

Yesterday many of the nation's papers reported modelling from the Parliamentary Budget Office—that's the thing; it was apparently provided by the Treasurer's office—that showed, depending on where you looked, a number of different figures: $100 billion, $150 billion, $300 billion in tax hikes under Labor. There we go. Get the bogeyman out again. The Treasurer thought he would get away with it. It is the latest in a line of unfounded, unresearched, unbackable and reckless claims they made about the Australian Labor Party. Let's look at the PBO's media release, when they responded to the Treasurer's latest fictional figures. It says:

References in the media this morning to modelling being released today by the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) are incorrect … The analysis reported in the media this morning was not conducted by the PBO.

So who did conduct it? Who made up this nonsense? Where did they get these figures and where do they get off making this stuff up? It's absurd. It's a farce. There is no leadership. We can see the Deputy Prime Minister's about to—well, who knows if he'll be here.

This government is failing on every front, slowing down the chance of economic reform and progress in this nation. Instead, they are focusing on feeding their own factional and ideological ambitions, and their jobs.

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