Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

We are debating a proposition in the bill being put forward by the government that would see billions of dollars in tax cuts for massive businesses that operate here and abroad, at the time we're being told that there's not enough money for the other things we want to do. For people watching this, the bill is Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan No. 2) Bill 2017. In fact the words in the brackets should be replaced and it should be the Treasury Laws Amendment (Reverse Midas Touch) Bill, because everything this Prime Minister touches turns to dust not to gold—every single thing. The Prime Minister was the person who decided he would change the way broadband was being rolled out in this country. What happened? We have seen the highest level of complaints about the broadband network. People are upset with the fact they expected a broadband system to deliver but it has failed to deliver—thank you, courtesy the Prime Minister; the reverse Midas touch. He had something that should have made everyone happy with the government. He couldn't do it, because he stuffed up the broadband network.

We have watched the other side of politics for the best part of 12 months try to come up with a game plan on energy. We've seen them twist and turn, bicker and fight and go around expert shopping—trying to find one expert after another to back in what they want to do. They have had the best part of 12 months and what have we got to? We have a 50c a week saving. That's all we have on energy: 50c a week. That is not worth the pain that the country has been forced to endure because of this government and the way they have been unable to get their act together. Now we have this: they claim that the economy will be saved if we just handover billions to companies from a budget that we're told doesn't have enough money in it. This is not a plan for economic salvation; this is a plan for political salvation. It is wrong and it's why Labor is opposing the handover of billions of dollars in this way.

Reports have emerged over the last 24 hours that the people who are more likely to be unemployed are those who have low skills. This should not be a surprise. Everyone has known this for a long period of time. When you look at the people who are unemployed, more often than not it is their low-skill attainment that has held them back. This government know it because in two years time they will bring in the Career Transition Assistance Program for older workers that will particularly target people in their 50s. What was one of the things that they found? They found that most people in that age bracket have a job—there's less unemployment amongst older workers; in fact, it's probably half the national unemployment rate and that is a great thing—but the minute those people lose their job, they are unable to get work for an average of 73 weeks; 73 weeks without work. What's one of the biggest reasons why they've lost work and can't find it again? It is low-skill attainment and low-education attainment.

The reason I mention this is that we wanted to see more investment in schools. What did we see? The reverse Midas touch in action again when the Gonski 2.0 plan, as it was erroneously labelled, was put forward. It cut out billions from what was required in school funding. So there's the first cut: to schools. TAFE has seen billions cut out of it, and more cuts are proposed—and a failure to bring in a new agreement to support it. So we have TAFE cuts. And what is happening with universities? We have billions to be cut from universities being continuously debated by a government that does not value education; it values demonising the people that don't have jobs, and for many of those people it's not because of low-skill attainment. But when we try to ensure that the next generation are as skilled as possible to get work, they are not given the chance. Why? Because the government says the money is not there, yet they can do this: they can actually saw underneath the bottom of the budget. It's like in those cartoons where you see someone sawing the floor to make someone fall through it. In this case it's the average Australian who is being undermined by a government that is cutting the support out from underneath them in a way that prevents them from being able to get ahead. That's what we're seeing with this bill. It cuts out billions from the budget and hands it over to big business, at a time when I argue those businesses are doing quite well. They have billions sitting there, but the government wants to make this massive transfer—and the bulk of it will go offshore anyway.

But that's what their plan for political salvation is—to say that they had a win. By the way, aren't all these wins translating in a great way! They had their first tranche of company tax cuts that got through. They had their changes to the backpacker tax. They had their changes to Gonski. They had changes to media reform. They are banking on all these wins, but look at where things have gone. The Prime Minister, in getting rid of the former Prime Minister, said that the government had lost its way, trailing in 30 Newspolls. But, after all these wins, how has this government under this Prime Minister—the man with the reverse Midas touch—been going? It's been trailing in 21—getting so close to losing out.

The government's plan is to hand billions over to big business. Look at the scale of dividend growth in this country from roughly 2014 to 2017: $40 billion handed out to investors and $70 billion this year—from $40 billion to $70 billion. With this tax cut, $65 billion is what's being proposed. The money is there. Big business is handing it out, in many cases to investors. But big business is not doing the lion's share of work in terms of investing or where capex is—capex is collapsing and hardly has any life to it—and it's certainly not providing average wage earners with wage increases. So what do we do as a result? We hand over billions that won't go into the pockets of average wage earners, that won't be put into productive investment to make the economy grow and provide more secure work, better wages for people and better economic outcomes. We won't see that. What will happen is it will funnel into investors here and overseas and we won't see any benefit from that whatsoever—when those businesses are already sitting on the equivalent amount when you see what's being paid out in dividends.

So this is the economic narrative—as the word is often described—of this government saying that this will provide a massive benefit to the economy. Really? Look at the stats. Since this plan was first introduced we've been able to scope out the economic benefit. What we're seeing is, potentially, one per cent economic growth in 20 years time and an increase in wages of $2 a day in 20 years time. This is in a climate where wages growth is flatlining. I think 1.9 per cent, roughly, is what's recorded. These are record lows. We see that living standards, which had been climbing, have gone backwards in the last quarter. We also see rising costs, largely driven by, as I mentioned earlier, the failure of this government to get a national energy plan in place. This has meant that the cost of electricity has gone up because there's not enough supply and demand is growing. Everyone knows what happens in that formula. The people who are bearing the price of that formula going the wrong way are average Australian households. When they are experiencing that sort of impact on their household budgets, particularly at a time when wages aren't growing, you can understand why people are anxious about their economic health. But, again, there is no answer from those opposite about how to improve wages growth and how to improve or tackle the issue of underemployment and how to get people into work.

My colleague the member for Longman and I attended a jobseekers forum that she convened last week in Caboolture, where people were saying that they found it so hard to find work and that the job programs that the Turnbull government are putting forward just aren't cutting it. This has been of great concern to the member for Longman, as it has been for other members of electorates that I've visited where jobseekers say the same thing. We spend billions on these job programs. We spend $9 billion on job programs for the 730,000 unemployed and we have 40,000 employment consultants in the country. But do you know what the most important performance stat of all is in terms of getting people into work—the success rate? It's 20 per cent. For $9 billion, we have a success rate, in terms of getting people back into work through government programs, of only 20 per cent. Eight out of ten people do not find work as a result of the Turnbull government's job programs.

Look at some of the other job programs that they're running—like Work for the Dole, which has been estimated by some to only improve the employability of the people forced to go through that program by a mere two per cent. Ninety per cent of the young people that go through Work for the Dole are not in work three months after. The other disgusting thing about this program is that, 18 months ago today, one poor bloke lost his life under it, and this government has not had the decency to release the internal review that they did on that accident or outline how they've made that program safer. This is a program, I add, members, that forces young people to go through it—and it doesn't deliver them a job—but it does so in a climate where there are legitimate concerns about the safety performance of that program. They don't get a job, and they're forced into a program that has massive safety concerns around it. This is wrong.

Again, these programs need attention. They need a government that has answers. They need a government that can get people back into work. They need an investment in skills. And what do we have in response? We have a government that proposes handing over, in the biggest glory gift, $65 billion straight out of the budget, instead of investing in people's skills, instead of investing in people's employability and instead of making these programs work. This is a massive indictment of this government, when you look at what has been happening under their watch. They can find money to hand to big businesses that are already sitting on massive piles of cash that they're handing out in dividends to investors—$70 billion this year, which they'll hold on top of that $65 million. And what's their other answer? At a time when people are worried about their jobs, their pay and wages growth, the other answer from this government is to cut the take-home pay of average Australians. There are 700,000 Australians who are looking at a pay cut as a result of a cut to penalty rates of $77 a week being championed by those opposite. You can't get a wage increase; the best you get out of this government is a wage cut.

What they're doing makes no economic sense whatsoever. But this is not, as I said, a plan for economic salvation; this is a plan for political salvation by this government. No matter what it does, it cannot find a way to get clear air. No matter what it does, whatever it puts its hand to—whatever it touches—turns to dust, not gold. The reverse Midas touch of this government is extraordinary. It is something to behold.

Mr Hill interjecting—

I am being very generous, as the member for Bruce indicates, in using the term 'dust'.

An opposition member interjecting—

I am a very generous man.

See this speech in context