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

Gross debt has crashed through half a trillion dollars for the first time in Australian history and will remain above that mark for the next decade. Net debt for the coming year is double what it was when the Liberals came to office. The deficit for this year is more than six times larger than it was forecast to be in the 2014 budget. Wages growth is at record lows, barely keeping up with inflation as electricity prices rise and private health insurance costs go up. Economic growth remains well below trend at a time when growth is picking up all around the world. We are seeing 120 economies experiencing economic growth—the first time we've seen that in years—and yet our economic growth remains below trend. Our unemployment rate, which during the global financial crisis was one of the lowest in the OECD, is now higher than the OECD average and higher than in many comparable countries like the US, the UK, New Zealand and Germany.

There's no doubt that this economic plan is failing, but there is the small matter of whose plan it is, the small matter of who actually writes the economic plans which get implemented in this country. We're discovering more and more that the economic plan is not written by the Treasurer. You might think that's a good thing, knowing the Treasurer, but you have to think of the counterfactual: who is writing the economic plan? One of the few people I can think of worse to write an economic plan than the Treasurer would be Pauline Hanson.

When the government announced they had a deal with One Nation to pass their big-business tax cuts there were a few surprising elements about it. I thought One Nation claimed to be on the side of the little guy, but they were voting for these tax cuts. Then they announced that they'd done a deal for an apprenticeship program in return for the big-business tax cuts. I will make a confession. I thought, 'Geez, maybe the government are better negotiators than I gave them credit for, because they've got a very modest, very small—

An opposition member: There's no-one here.

Mr Deputy Speaker Hogan, there's no member of the executive present. The House is not in order; it must be shut down immediately. The standing orders are very clear.

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