Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Well, it's lovely to see how the coalition rolls out the heavyweights when there's an economic debate! The fact of the matter is this. When Australian families are out shopping for presents this Christmas they're going to have less money in their pockets than they did six years ago, because real household income is lower now than it was in 2013. And whether you're an average family in Western Sydney or in the Illawarra, you've got less money to go around at Christmas time this year than you did in 2013. Australians are coming home from work with less money in their wallets because wages and wages growth are at their lowest rate on record. Businesses are feeling the pressure as well. The shop owners you go and speak to are going to be telling you that they're feeling the pressure because retail sales are down. No money in your pocket means no money in the till.

These guys just don't seem to get it. The Prime Minister and the Treasurer love to talk about global headwinds, as if the cause of all of these problems is somehow somewhere else, not to be blamed on them. But the last budget update, on 2 December, showed the lie in this, because all our problems are home grown, because the government does not have a plan. They didn't expect to win an election, and they don't have a plan to govern the country. There is record demand and record prices for our commodities. The rest of the world wants the stuff that we've got to sell, but still we can't manage to get ahead.

When you raise these problems with the Prime Minister, the glass jaw shatters, as we saw in question time today. There is a very good reason that he refers to quiet Australians. When he refers to quiet Australians, it's a direction, not a description. It's a direction to Australians to be quiet and stop complaining about robodebt. It's a direction to Australians to be quiet and stop complaining about the government's woeful record on implementation of the banking royal commission's recommendations to the government. As we go to Christmas, fewer than six of the 76 recommendations from the Hayne royal commission have been implemented, and the member for Hume—more gates after his name than the average cattle yard—is still a protected species, still holds a position on the frontbench. They like to talk about their great achievement in balancing the budget, but here on National Disability Day we've got to bell the cat: $4.6 billion ripped out of the National Disability Insurance Scheme at the same time that people with disabilities can't get the care that they're after or can't get a wheelchair that they need to get out of the house. It's an absolute shame.

The government campaigned for six months about protecting retirees. Obviously they meant only some retirees, because if you're a retiree from an immigrant background and you want to go home and visit your family back overseas, they're cutting your pension. And they voted for it. They voted for $180 million ripped out of the pension system. Their present to Australians from an immigrant background this Christmas is a pension cut. And they voted for it.

If we are going to have a plan to get us out of these economic woes, we need a plan to deal with productivity. And do you think we saw one? They spent all of last week on a union-busting bill, but they haven't got a plan to deal with productivity in this country. Here's a tip: how about you focus on that 70 per cent of the workforce and that 70 per cent of economic activity which is the services economy? You haven't got a plan for that. A good plan might be able to do something to encourage business investment and small and medium enterprises, but, with no plan for that, business confidence is going backwards. While you're dealing with that, how about a plan for broadband? We know that, if you're going to run a services economy, you need decent broadband, and all you've done is stuff the only plan going.

A modern economy is driven on services and electricity. These guys have had five years to deliver an energy plan and they still can't make their mind up on something. So we won't be copping a lecture, and Australians will see right through this Prime Minister with a glass jaw as they go into Christmas. There's less money in their pockets and there's no plan to pull them out of the problems next year. All they've got is a Prime Minister with a glass jaw who seems to want to evade every piece of scrutiny.

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