Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

If only! If only he was class president! I'd like to start by commending the member for Fraser for bringing the government's dismal performance on the economy to the attention of the House. There's a lot to get through in the 4½ minutes that I have left to speak, but I think the list provided in the motion is quite an exhaustive list.

Unlike those on the other side, I like to rely on evidence and expertise from people who know what they're talking about. So I think a good place to start is to look at the forecasts that were made by a panel of 24 leading economists, published on The Conversation last month. That panel looked at the year ahead and concluded:

2020 is shaping up as a dismal year for the economy, with no progress on many of the key measures that matter for Australians.

One of those key measures is economic growth, which is projected to stay at or below two per cent for at least another year. We're now seeing the longest period of low economic growth since the early 1990s recession. To put that into context, economic growth has rarely been as low as 1.4 per cent outside of a recession. When we take into account population growth, and income and production per citizen, all of this has gone backwards. The last time that happened was during the GFC; and the time before that was in the early 1990s, in the recession. Household spending has failed also to keep up, and we know that households are spending less, primarily because they have less money to spend. There is less disposable income.

That brings me to the point about wage stagnation, which is listed in this motion. We've seen slow growth in real wages under this government. And why would we expect wages to grow when Minister Cormann came out and admitted that keeping wages low is the centrepiece of this government's economic strategy—keep wages low? The panel that I mentioned of the 24 leading economists concluded that it will be domestic rather than overseas conditions that hold back Australian growth. So, the member for Goldstein can talk about conditions that are out of the control of this government, but the fact is that it is well within this government's reach to create the conditions for economic growth. On this point this government is continuing to fail Australians.

Standards of living in Australia: the growth in our living standards is expected to slow to 2.4 per cent. Nominal GDP is expected to slow. The unemployment rate is expected to be at five to 5.5 per cent, rather than falling to the 4.5 per cent that the Reserve Bank states is necessary for economic growth. Household spending, as I mentioned, is barely growing. Financial markets provide less support to households. We've got a drop in labour productivity, and the Productivity Commission makes the point that 'this year Australia's productivity has slid backwards for the first time since the mining boom'. The report by the Productivity Commission shows that two measures of productivity fell in 2018-19.

Despite all of this, despite the weak productivity growth, slow wage growth and wage stagnation, despite economic growth being the worst it's ever been since the GFC, despite high unemployment, despite weak consumption growth, despite weak consumption growth, despite low rates in retail growth, with, as the member for Fraser mentioned, shops closing their doors left, right and centre—even huge multinationals that were successful in Australia are now closing their doors—despite weak business in investment and weakness in productivity, this government refuses to enact any fiscal measures, instead relying on the Reserve Bank. (Time expired)

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