Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I suspect that the Treasurer is secretly happy about the scandal which is engulfing the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General. This is not just because it makes life very difficult for his rivals, which is obviously his overriding, highest priority, but also because it obscures what has been his serious mismanagement of the economy over his time as Treasurer. For the past six months at least, we've seen one humiliating number after another from this incompetent Treasurer and this arrogant Prime Minister. These are the same two blokes who ran around Australia during the election and said that they would make the economy 'even stronger' when in reality they've made it even weaker. They are two guys who presided over the weakest growth in decades and who doubled the debt, something that the Prime Minister misled the parliament about earlier on today.

Whether the number in the national accounts tomorrow is 1.6, 1.7 or 1.8, it will show that in this country we are getting below-average economic growth from a below-average government. It will show that growth hasn't been strong enough or broad enough, it hasn't trickled down to the people and it hasn't trickled out to the suburbs. It will show that an absence of a plan from this Morrison government has cost Australia, its people and its economy very dearly, because growth with a '1' in front of it has not been enough to ensure good, well-paid jobs for enough Australians.

The day before national accounts, it's traditional for there to be lots of predictions flying around about what the numbers will be—what the quarterly number, the annual number and the components of growth in this country will be. People are hunched over their spreadsheets in the banks and other institutions—the Reserve Bank and elsewhere—working out what the number might be tomorrow. But I think only one thing can be predicted with absolute certainty: no matter what the number is tomorrow, the Treasurer will say he's doing a really good job. He has always been his own biggest fan, this Treasurer. He is a massive admirer of his own performance. And he will expect the people of this country to form an orderly queue to pat him on the back and tell him what a genius he is even if growth is once again below average as it has been for some time. That's how horrendously out of touch this Treasurer and this government are. If he gets put under pressure as he was again in question time today, he'll say it's all our fault. It's all somehow Labor's fault.

He'll say that the economic fundamentals are strong, that the policy settings are right, that ordinary Australians have never had it so good. But those same policy settings from those opposite have been a recipe for feeble growth, for record debt, for stagnant wages, for rising unemployment and for weak investment, and it's time that a government in its third term and in its seventh year actually took responsibility for the weakness in the economy on their watch. It's not enough just to pretend that you're good at managing the economy, when the facts tell a very different story. Just in the last week we learned there's been a decline in job ads, a decline in sales, a decline in building approvals, a decline in inventories, the first decline in multifactor productivity in eight years and the first decline in labour productivity since that record began a quarter of a century ago.

If you don't want to take just last week, think about what we have learned in the last month. Wages growth slowed even further; unemployment and underemployment both went up; 19,000 jobs were lost; retail trade went backwards, the worst result since the recession of the early nineties; capital expenditure declined further, more than 30 per cent lower under this government than before that; and the RBA said that they were contemplating unconventional monetary policy. If you don't want to take the last month, consider that, since the election, economic growth is the slowest in a decade; household debt is at new record highs; business investment is the lowest since the early nineties; there have been three interest rate cuts; the RBA, the IMF and the OECD all downgraded their expectations for growth; and net debt hit $400 billion for the first time in Australia's history. If you don't want to take last week, last month or what has happened since the election and you want another set of evidence about this government's chronic mismanagement of the economy, think about this. These are all the things that have gone backwards on their watch. The domestic private economy? Backwards. Productivity? Backwards. GDP per capita?

Opposition members: Backwards.

Manufacturing production?

Opposition members: Backwards.

Private business investment?

Opposition members: Backwards.

Retail volumes?

Opposition members: Backwards.

Construction work?

Opposition members: Backwards.

Capex?

Opposition members: Backwards.

The list goes on and on. Tomorrow, when we go beyond all the spin, all the finger-pointing, all the buck-passing and all the excuse-making from those opposite, one thing is incredibly clear: the economy is not delivering for working people. Our side of parliament understands that; that side of the parliament will never understand what's going on in real communities for real people. The economy is not delivering for the almost two million Australians who are looking for work or for more work. It's not delivering for the broad swathes of the Australian community who feel, with some justification, that, no matter how hard they work, they just can't keep up with the rising costs of child care, electricity and private health insurance.

It's not delivering for working people, because this government actually has the worst record for wages growth of any government ever. This record on wages is so bad that the Reserve Bank has now told us that, under those opposite—a government in its third term, in its seventh year—weak wages is now 'the new normal'. Think about that for a moment. What a remarkably pessimistic thing for the Reserve Bank to say about wages under those opposite! After six-and-a-bit years of those opposite you can come to no other conclusion that, with the policy settings of those opposite, working Australians are never going to get a look in. They haven't been getting a look in and they won't get a look in.

Most Australians would consider the Reserve Bank saying that weak wages growth is the new normal is a damning indictment of those opposite. Most people would think that is something a government should be really embarrassed about, if not ashamed about, but those opposite consider it a triumph. We know this because the finance minister, in a burst of honesty, said low wages growth and weak wages growth was a deliberate design feature of the economic policy of those opposite. The Reserve Bank considers weak wages growth to be the new normal; those opposite consider it to be mission accomplished. That's what they've been going for. I say to every Australian who is working hard but just can't get ahead: that is how those opposite want you to be. That is the permanent position they want you to be in. That's a deliberate design feature of what those opposite want for you.

As I said, the economy is not working for working people, and those opposite should stop pretending that it is. No matter what the numbers tell us tomorrow, we already know enough about weakness in the economy to know that something needs to change. We can't continue down this path of a Morrison government without a plan to boost growth and wages in our economy. Since the election, the government has been faced with an avalanche of disappointing data. At every point, at every juncture, they've had a choice. They could dismiss it, deny it, play politics and pretend they've had nothing to do it, or they could come up with a real plan to deal with it. So puffed up have they been with post-election hubris—as we've seen in almost every answer the Prime Minister has given in this place—and with their own self-importance, their arrogance, their belief that they are above the rules and shouldn't be held accountable for anything, that they get that simple choice wrong every single time.

Whatever the growth number is tomorrow in the national accounts, whatever the Treasurer says about it tomorrow, annual growth with a 1 in front of it, if that's the outcome, just isn't enough. It's not enough to create the opportunities that Australians need and deserve. It's not enough to make communities thrive, not just survive. It's not enough to ensure that the working people of this country, when they put in effort, can get ahead and not just get by. What we've seen in the six months since the government's election and the six years since their first election is that ordinary Australians are paying the price for a government which has a political strategy but not an economic plan. It's way beyond time for the government to change course and look after working Australians for once.

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