Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House notes the Government's economic mismanagement and its sustained failure to deliver improved economic outcomes for Australians during its seven year term in office, measured by:

(1) wage stagnation;

(2) near record levels of underemployment;

(3) high and rising rates of labour underutilisation, particularly for young people and in regional areas;

(4) high levels of youth unemployment;

(5) Australia's higher unemployment relative to peer nations;

(6) weak consumption growth;

(7) weak business investment; and

(8) weak and declining productivity growth.

This motion calls this government to account for its economic mismanagement and the negative consequences flowing from that. Our economy is weak. We all see this. We see this when we go back to our electorates and talk to our constituents. We see this with the lowest wages growth on record. We see this with labour productivity going back for the first time ever. These are not records that we want to be setting. We see this in the fact that retailers are shutting their doors every night on the news and that when we look on main street there are shops boarded up. We see this in the fact that consumer confidence is low and that the banks gave evidence to the House Economics Committee that roughly only a quarter of the government's first tranche of tax cuts was actually spent. We see unemployment stuck above five per cent. When we look at comparator economies, like the UK and the US, unemployment is far lower; far fewer people are negatively affected by this scourge. We see that in those economies unemployment is at levels that they haven't seen for half a century. Here, we are stuck. We see, more worryingly, that underemployment is high and rising: over eight per cent, and underutilisation of labour is nearly 20 per cent in some regions.

Why are we in this shocking position, where our living standards are lower than they should be and we are less resilient to shocks than we should be? For two key reasons: firstly, this government is actually damaging our economy through its policies and, secondly, this government is not implementing policies that it should to benefit our economy.

Let's imagine the Australian economy were a patient. It turns up to get help. There are two doctors: Dr RBA and Dr Frydenberg. Dr RBA says: 'You don't look well. I'll administer some help.' It lowers interest rates to levels nearly one-third of the level they were at the depths of the GFC. That helps a bit. But then the patient turns around to see what Dr Frydenberg is doing. Dr Frydenberg is heading out the door with the patient's wallet, riffling through it and taking notes out. The patient says, 'Hey, I thought you were here to help me!' Dr Frydenberg says, 'No, I need a surplus.' What we see—

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