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

Like you, Mr Speaker, I've been in this House for some years now, and I've had the pleasure of witnessing some important moments in this House over the last 15 years or so. There is one that stands in my memory—it's not a particularly pleasant moment, but one I remember particularly well. Some years ago I was sitting in my spot, where the member for Batman is currently sitting, and I heard the then Prime Minister of Australia, John Winston Howard, stand at the dispatch box and utter some immortal words. I remember being quite shocked when I was sitting where the member for Batman is sitting and I heard the Australian Prime Minister of the day say, 'Australian working families have never been better off.' The Australian people had a different view, and they expressed that view at the ballot box at the next opportunity.

I'm reminded of that incident because every time this Prime Minister and his current Treasurer tell the Australian people how well their economic plan is working they get a similar reaction from Australians right across the country, who say, 'It's not working for me.' It's not working for working Australians. It's not working for those who put all their efforts into their day-to-day working lives and receive no wage increase for it and, in many cases, receive a pay cut. Every time the Prime Minister and Treasurer arrogantly boast about how their plan is working, they underline how out of touch they are with the needs of ordinary Australians. They underline just how they get it wrong with their economic policies. Australians know that everything is going up except for their wages, and they know this economy is not working for them. And they know that their living standards aren't improving. We've seen more evidence of that in recent weeks.

We've seen evidence released by the Australian National University Centre for Social Research and Methods, which has found that, over the last three years, living costs have outstripped growth in wages by almost three per cent, by 2.9 per cent. This means that, under the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments, Australian households have experienced the worst cost-of-living crunch in more than 30 years. This has occurred on the watch of these Prime Ministers and these successive Treasurers. The same analysis shows that, since 2013, when this government came to office, living standards have gone backwards by 1.2 per cent. That compares with a 7.6 per cent increase under the previous, Labor government, in very difficult international circumstances. That's the difference of economic approach between the two governments.

Driving this stagnation of living standards is the flat wages growth in Australia—indeed, in some instances, worse than flat wages growth. The fact of the matter is that wages growth has been stuck at its lowest rate on record, and private sector wages, in particular, which account for the majority of workers in the economy, have been growing at just 2.1 per cent, after having grown by less than two per cent for much of the last couple of years. Real wages, taking into account the cost of living, increased by just 1.3 per cent in the five years to 2018, compared with a nine per cent increase under the previous five years of Labor government. And, since 2013, nominal wages have been growing at two per cent a year, half the rate of the 2000s. So this is why this government gets it so wrong.

The previous Labor government understood the importance of wages growth, understood the importance of a fair industrial relations system. Not only does the Labor Party understand it; other experts understand it. The Governor of the Reserve Bank—appropriately, central bankers are very careful in their economic commentary; they're not radical, not extreme in their views, by and large—has said that 'slow wages growth is diminishing our sense of shared prosperity'. The Governor of the Reserve Bank understands the importance of wages growth going forward. He went on to say:

The best outcome is one in which a pick-up in wages growth is accompanied by stronger growth in labour productivity. That's because, ultimately, the basis for sustained growth in real wages is that we become more productive as a nation.

The Governor of the Reserve Bank has highlighted this time and time again as one of the key issues facing the nation.

I will say this: the slow wages growth in Australia is not just entirely an Australian phenomenon. Other countries have experienced slow wages growth as well. I don't hold the government responsible for every element of that. But the fact of the matter is that we are still doing worse than many other countries, countries we compare ourselves with. Until 2013, under the Labor government, wages growth in Australia was better than the OECD average. We were doing better than our competitors, comparable countries in the developed world. But since 2013 we've been doing worse than the OECD average. In 2013 something important happened: the government changed and the Liberal and National parties became the government. In fact, since then, in the OECD, in the developed world, there have been just five economies that have done worse than Australia in wages growth—just five out of the entire developed world. We were doing better than the developed world under the Labor government and we're doing worse under the Liberal government.

In fairness, when it comes to wages, I give them this: they do have a plan. We hear a lot about their plans. The government do have a plan: to cut the wages of the people who work on the weekends. That's their wages plan. That's the only plan they have when it comes to wages. Their only idea, their one big idea when it comes to wages, is to say, 'If you work on a Sunday, you deserve less. If you work on a Sunday, you shouldn't be paid as much as you were.' For a long time in Australia, you've been recognised for the work you do on Saturdays and Sundays. My dad worked every Sunday of my childhood. My dad worked every Christmas Day and every Easter Sunday of my childhood. I remember once asking my dad, 'How come you work every Sunday? How come we can't spend time together on a Sunday?' and he said, 'Well, the time that I work on a Sunday, mate, puts food on the table for our family.' Just as my father deserved that extra pay for working on a Sunday, so does every Australian who works on a Sunday in 2019. They deserve it no less than him. They work just as hard as he did for all those years. Under this government, they see their wages going backwards and their living standards going backwards and they know this economy is not working for them, just as Australians know that right across the board.

There's an impact of the low wages growth and stagnation in living standards, and it affects our economy. We have the second-highest household debt in the developed world, and we should not be proud of that. Our household savings ratio has been falling. Do you know why? Because more and more Australian households are dipping into their savings just to get by, just to make ends meet, just to keep food on the table, because costs are going up and wages aren't following them, and the government thinks that's just fine. The government thinks that's okay. We see the impacts too in consumption. We've seen consumption growth come down. In fact, it's at its lowest rate in six years under this government's watch, because Australians aren't sharing fairly in our economy; they're not sharing fairly in the economic growth we have.

We'll hear a lot, I predict, in the contributions of government members about unemployment and employment growth. We welcome that debate too, because the fact of the matter is that, during the global financial crisis, we did better than the world and now we're doing worse on this government's watch. The fact of the matter is that we have 1.1 million Australians who are not getting as much work as they want and need. We have 1.1 million underemployed Australians who want more work and are happy to work longer hours but are simply not getting the work that they need and want.

We also know, and we agree with the Governor of the Reserve Bank, that one of the things we can do is improve productivity growth for the economy. Even on that measure, Australia is not doing as well as it should. We have seen seven out of the nine last productivity measurements not growing at all; they've been falling in relation to productivity growth. So this government can't point to any economic indicator which is working for most Australians. We're seeing record high underemployment and record low wages growth; we're seeing consumption growth falling and we're seeing productivity growth being flat as well. The government keeps saying, 'Just hold on a little bit longer. Could you just wait a little bit longer. Our plan will start to work soon.'

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