Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Industry) Share this | Hansard source

We saw today that the government is willing to use its numbers to stop substantive and procedural debates from happening when it comes to ministerial responsibility. We saw last week that the Leader of the Opposition invited the Prime Minister to debate the economy, and the government, of course, used its numbers to stop that debate. This is the place where the big debates should happen, in the national interest, and yet, time and time again, the government refuses to have those debates. We have a Prime Minister and a government in denial about the structural weaknesses in our labour market and our economy—either that, or a deliberate failure to acknowledge or address these pressing challenges, including record high underemployment and record low wages growth, and a deliberate attempt to manipulate or omit evidence that casts serious doubt on the government's economic record.

Let me just state some pertinent facts for this debate. Economic growth presided over by this government is at the lowest level since the global financial crisis. Wages are growing at one-sixth the pace of profits, with the government presiding over the lowest wages growth on record. This is one of the reasons why household debt has surged to record levels—in fact, 190 per cent of disposable income. It in part explains why consumer confidence has fallen and consumption growth is very weak. It in part explains why business confidence is down and why productivity is down, while net public debt has doubled under the time of this government.

Then there is the fantasy of employment nirvana imagined by this government. Labor accepts that there has been employment growth—due, in the main, to population growth. But there are many facts that the government fails to recognise and to acknowledge and, as a result, fails to address. As Labor has been arguing for years now, underemployment is an increasing problem in our labour market. Under-utilisation—that is, the combined number of unemployed and underemployed Australians—has continued to climb. We are witnessing some employment growth, as I say, but what the Prime Minister does not care to admit—and we saw it again today in question time—is that we are heading towards almost two million of our fellow Australians looking for any work or looking for more work, but unable to find it—almost two million of our fellow citizens in that situation. Over the past year—and this is another fact that you wouldn't hear from the Treasurer or the Prime Minister—the number of unemployed Australians has increased by 43,600, and the number of underemployed Australians in this last year has increased by 34,100. That's nearly 80,000 more people looking for work, or looking for more work, than there were a year ago. That is something that's never acknowledged by this government. Under-utilisation now is hovering between 13½ and 14 per cent of our labour market, and that is very high.

Indeed, if you look at one of the reasons why we're seeing persistent low wage growth, it's that the labour market is not contracting. When you have over a million Australians looking for more work, that means there is slack in the labour market. Really the only thing that the government is relying upon to see any future wage growth is a contraction and tightening of the labour market, and that's not happening.

This goes to some of the questions around Labor's performance and the revisionism that we see by those opposite. When last in government, Labor's unemployment rate, compared with that of the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and, in fact, most European states, was lower—in fact, in some cases, much, much lower. Today, Australia's unemployment rate is higher than that of the United States, the United Kingdom and, indeed, New Zealand. In fact, we have not seen a decline in the unemployment rate in the way in which the government describes. We have seen a fall, but, compared to countries that we tend to use as benchmarks, there has not been a significant decline in the unemployment rate and there's been an increase in underutilisation and underemployment numbers. Because of that, as I say, over one million of our fellow citizens can't find enough work and, because of that, they're not earning sufficient income; hence household debt and falling consumption.

Those are the problems that exist in the labour market and, if they're not acknowledged by the Prime Minister, by the Treasurer or by the government, then of course we're not going to see anything put in place to address those issues. That's why the tax cuts have almost sunk without trace. Just ask small and medium enterprises about what has happened with respect to the first tranche of the tax cuts? It's been an almost negligible impact insofar as those businesses are concerned. They're not feeling greater consumer confidence. There's not greater consumption at the levels that the government boasts. Ask the large retailers as to whether they've seen the benefits of those tax cuts and they would say to you that the benefits are negligible. And yet the government continues to revise history to argue that things are going very, very well. The fact is that this revisionism, this attempt to deny the facts, may well explain why the government stubbornly refuses to deploy a fiscal strategy to kick-start our economy.

As we know, the Reserve Bank Governor has been gently advising the government for some months to bring forward infrastructure investment. Indeed, as the economy slows and the budget proves to be deficient in improving our economic performance, the Prime Minister's hubris and arrogance are on full display. It's not just the Reserve Bank warning the government about inaction and inertia; just last week the International Monetary Fund belled the cat. The IMF's economic outlook slashed Australia's economic growth forecasts so it would appear that growth this year has been slower than that of the United States, that of Spain and even that of Greece. As we can all see from the evidence presented, the Prime Minister misrepresents the facts, denies the evidence and contrives a story that belies the truth. In doing so, he not only sullies the office of prime ministership but ignores the economic reality, thereby refusing to address the challenges in our economy.

Meanwhile, of course, the government continue to look after their own mates and pretty much nobody else. Just think about the debate we've been having over the last little while. How slow are the government and how much little action have we witnessed by the government in looking after our nation's farmers, who are confronted with one of the worst droughts on record? The government have not brought forward support fast enough, have not been big enough, have not been fast enough, and have thrown farmers off support, and they're supposed to be the natural constituency of those opposite. Frankly, if they're supposed to be your friends, I really do care for those you have little regard for. The fact is that there's been a hopeless response by the government with respect to dealing with the drought, despite the rhetoric of those opposite.

How little care does the Prime Minister exhibit? What little empathy does he show to the 800,000 hospitality and retail workers who had further cuts, in material terms, to their wages this year as a result of the Fair Work decision to reduce penalty rates? At the same time, as was revealed in estimates this week, the Prime Minister's own staff are defying the two per cent pay freeze and, as we've been advised, they are being provided secret, huge wage increases, described by one of their colleagues as 'cheating the system', according to Alice Workman in The Australian. Frankly, we should not be surprised about the secrecy. This Prime Minister is no stranger to providing incomplete answers to questions asked in the public interest. Remember, any question he chose not to answer when he was immigration minister was on a water matter. When he was Treasurer and, indeed, now as Prime Minister, he refuses to answer questions deemed to be a 'Canberra bubble' question. Most recently, he declined to confirm whether the White House, no less, vetoed one of his guests because it was 'gossip'. The public deserve better from this government and this Prime Minister. The public and the media have a right to know.

Just as the Prime Minister is failing to admit that there are structural economic challenges, he refuses to accept that he has an obligation to be accountable, to be up-front with the Australian people, and the Australian people will mark him down as he continues to act in this arrogant manner. It is unreasonable, unconscionable conduct by any Prime Minister.

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