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

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2019-2020 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2019-2020. The bills outline the additional spending for the 2019-20 financial year, which are primarily the measures that were in the mid-year update in December, but also some of the measures which are related to the response to the bushfires over this very challenging summer. All of the totals are obviously in the bills and, consistent with the way that we usually approach these kinds of bills, Labor will be supporting the appropriation of this money in the usual way. We will also take the opportunity to speak about what we think is some fairly substantial mismanagement of the economy over recent years, well before some of the challenges of the summer emerged.

It is definitely true that the coronavirus and the bushfires over this summer will have a substantial impact on the Australian economy and on other economies, and clearly that means that there will be an impact on the budget as well. We have acknowledged that all along. We've acknowledge when it comes to coronavirus that we will be as constructive as we can in listening to and accepting the advice provided by medical experts and extending, where possible and where appropriate, the hand of bipartisanship as the country works through what will be a fairly substantial impact from the virus as well as from the fires and drought.

But the point that we make and the point that those opposite are desperate for Australians to forget is that we entered this summer from a position of relative economic weakness, not strength. We entered the summer with a report card on the national accounts for the September quarter last year, which we got in December, that showed some very troubling developments but also some longstanding weaknesses in the Australian economy. The last national accounts that we got—and we'll get an update on the December accounts next week—had some very troubling numbers. Quarterly growth slowed in those figures. Annual growth was only 1.7 per cent, which is well below the budget forecast. The economy was barely growing faster than the population. GDP per capita didn't grow at all in that most recent quarter. The private domestic economy went backwards for two quarters and has now experienced the biggest decline since the global financial crisis.

I heard the Prime Minister talking yesterday about how the difficulties in the international environment mean we need to lean more heavily on the domestic economy. The domestic economy has gone backwards on his watch before the fires and before any of us had even heard of coronavirus. Total private business investment went backwards in that last quarter. Wages were growing at only one-fifth the pace of profits. Productivity declined in the quarter and over the year. There are so many indicators in the national accounts released in December which prove beyond any argument that the economy was underperforming substantially before these difficulties emerged this summer.

We also know that because, in the government's own midyear update—which, again, came out in the middle of December, not that long ago—the government itself downgraded expectations for wages growth. They said unemployment would be a higher than expected. So all of this rubbish that the economy was somehow all humming along perfectly, and then we had the fires and coronavirus, and those are the only reasons why things are tough at the moment, is completely and utterly wrong in every way. The economy was floundering under those opposite before the fires and before coronavirus. They are desperate for the Australian people to forget that.

But Australians understand that their wages have been stagnant not just for the last few weeks but for the last few years. Australians understand that it hasn't just all of a sudden, since the outbreak of coronavirus, got more difficult for people to pay for child care or electricity or their health costs. These have been longstanding economic challenges. They are the consequence of a government which had a plan to win an election but not a plan to grow the economy in a meaningful way—not a plan to grow wages or deal with energy to get cheaper and cleaner energy into our economy, which are good for families and businesses. Absolutely no idea how to go about all of that! And that's why we've got economic weakness which is longstanding. It hasn't just arrived on our doorstep with the first cases of coronavirus. Those opposite should stop pretending that that is the only reason. Coronavirus and the fires on their own do not explain or excuse what has been that longstanding economic weakness in our economy, which Australians have felt for too long because they have a government which is incapable of coming up with a plan to support the economy through a very difficult period.

A lot of the talk in the last few days relevant to this appropriation bill is about the government's promise of a surplus this year. The point we make about that—and we've made this responsibly and consistently—is that the priority should be supporting bushfire affected communities, families, workers and businesses and our emergency services, who have done such an extraordinary job in the most difficult circumstances over the last few months. We've said for a long time now that that's got to be the priority. We've been very responsible about that—far more responsible in this case than those opposite were when the floods hit Queensland in the latter years of the Gillard government. The reason we've done that is that we do think that these are difficult and challenging times for the economy and difficult and challenging times for the budget. But the point that I would make about the surplus is this: it wasn't us that asked for the Treasurer and the Prime Minister to be judged on one criteria and one criteria alone—whether they hit a surplus in 2019-20. It was the Treasurer himself and the Prime Minister himself. In the absence of any other commitments or any other plan, they begged the Australian people to judge them on just that one criteria—

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