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

Today we got the national accounts, which were a report card on those opposite in the last three months of last year in the economy. What they showed was that economic growth in the last quarter of last year was slower than the quarter before. Economic growth had slowed. It showed that growth was once again well below average and well below trend. It also showed that growth is a full percentage point lower than it was before the Prime Minister and the Treasurer took up their roles.

When you look at those numbers, you see the slowing in growth; there's the private economy which didn't grow at all in the quarter; consumption growth at its slowest pace since the GFC; total private business investment going backwards for the third consecutive quarter; wages growth was really weak and it slowed even further in the December quarter.

I'm glad we were able to ask the Treasurer about this in question time today, because when we asked him about all of these things, all of this weakness across the board, the good news is that we were wrong. There was one indicator that the Treasurer was able to point to. He said that ownership transfer costs are going really well. Wages are weak; growth is slowing; business investment is horrible; household debt is horrible; the budget is blowing out; debts are more than double; but the good news is that ownership transfer costs are going great guns.

For those of you in the House who had to google ownership transfer costs—including me—you will discover that ownership transfer costs are actually lawyers' fees. The bad news is that the economy's growing slower; the bad news is that wages can't keep up with the cost of living; the bad news is that household debt has gone through the roof and public debt has more than doubled; the bad news is that we have a productivity problem and an investment problem; but the good news is that the lawyers are getting paid more fees than they were in the quarter before. The quarterly growth in legal fees is going great guns. Well done to the Treasurer of Australia—that is terrific!

The truth is that these numbers today absolutely torpedo the farcical argument from the Treasurer and the Prime Minister that the economy was going well before the coronavirus hit. As ANZ has just said, as the NAB has just said, that these numbers today show that the economy was weak before the virus hit. Unsurprisingly, despite all of this weakness throughout the economy, the Treasurer gets up and gives a statement earlier today and he expects a big pat on the back. He gives himself a big pat on the back for these numbers which are out today. That isn't terribly surprising. The Treasurer is the kind of guy whose team can get dusted by 100 points and he will declare himself best on ground. Every single workplace in Australia has someone like that, and unfortunately the Treasurer of Australia is the one in our workplace. He's always very keen and very pleased with his own performance. What his spin and his grin always tries to obscure, but never fully can, is that there has been weakness in the economy for some time. All of us represent communities and are in touch with our communities, and we understand that people feel, with some justification, that no matter how hard they work, they just can't keep up with the rising costs of child care or electricity or health. They're finding it harder and harder to make ends meet.

The data bears this out as well. It's true that every single quarter under this Prime Minister and this Treasurer has shown annual growth below trend, below average, in the economy. They are yet to have an outcome in any quarterly number in their roles that shows at least average growth in the economy, let alone better than that. That speaks volumes about a long period of significant economic mismanagement and underperformance on their watch. We gave the Treasurer two opportunities today to stick by the thing that he has said hundreds if not thousands of times: 'Back in the black, back on track.' We asked the Treasurer twice to do that today, and he was unwilling or unable to do that. It's almost like they've forgotten those mugs that they were flogging off for $35 plus $4 postage. Everyone who bought one of those mugs should get their money back. We weren't the ones who printed the mugs. We weren't the ones that made that commitment for them. That's their commitment. If they fall short of that commitment, it will be on them. When we asked them about 'back in the black' in particular, they say, 'No, we said something else.' But the mugs didn't say 'back in beige', did they? They said that the budget was back in the black.

It is true that we are entering a difficult period in the economy, and I think all of us have acknowledged that the challenges associated with the coronavirus and the government's response to that serious and significant challenge means that our economy will be impacted. We've been up-front about that all along. Given we've been up-front about that, the onus is on the government to now admit, given the numbers that came out today, that we enter a difficult period from a position of relative economic weakness, not strength. Growth is slowing, unemployment is rising, and debt's more than doubled in the budget—most of the debt in there is actually Liberal debt.

So those opposite are about to get tested. They are about to be tested by a significant event in the economy. There will be an impact, and we've said that—the leader's said that and we've all said that at different times. It remains to be seen whether they are up to it. But what we already know is that, in their third term now and in their seventh year, they have failed all of the tests that they have set for themselves. They said at election time, 'We promised to make the economy even stronger.' Instead, it got even weaker. They said they'd have a surplus in the first year and every year after that. They're none for six, and we don't know whether they will be none for seven. They said they'd pay down debt, and instead debt has more than doubled and they've abandoned their commitment to pay it off, even over the next 10 years. So, on all these measures that they asked us to judge them on—they said judge us only on this; there's very little else that they asked to be judged on—they have failed the test that they set themselves. They are failing those tests they set for themselves, and they're about to be tested again.

This coronavirus is the kind of test that the Treasurer won't be able to grin and spin his way out of. He will not be able to network his way out of this. The economy doesn't grow on self-congratulation, unfortunately. All these things that the Treasurer is a gold medallist at will not help Australia and Australian workers, businesses and communities through a very difficult period.

Given that there have been three consecutive decades now of continuous economic growth, the Leader of the Opposition asked the Prime Minister today, 'Will this three-decade run of unbroken economic growth survive Scott Morrison's Prime Ministership?' and the Prime Minister was unable to say that it will. I think that speaks to a deeper truth. When this side of the House was tested during the darkest days of the global financial crisis—we were over there, then—we passed with flying colours. I don't know about the rest of the colleagues, but I am tremendously proud of what Australia was able to achieve—Australian businesses, Australian workers, Australian communities—when we banded together, working with each other, under the leadership of Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan and the whole cabinet and the whole Labor Party. We are tremendously proud of what we achieved during the global financial crisis.

Those opposite can pretend all they like that that wasn't a golden period in economic policy success for this country. The rest of the world recognises that what Australia was able to achieve during that period was something special, and it is something that every Australian business and every Australian worker should be very proud of. Every time that they seek to diminish that achievement they seek to diminish the achievements of workers and communities and businesses, who stuck together in a very difficult period and did the right thing by each other and, in doing that, did the right thing by the economy and the country more broadly. They can do all they want to diminish that. They're about to be tested. It will be not as big a test as the GFC, most likely, but they are about to be tested. It remains to be seen whether that three-decade run of unbroken economic growth will continue under those opposite. As the Leader of the Opposition mentioned in his question, that 30-year period of unbroken economic growth originated under Labor and it was saved by Labor when it was at maximum risk. They are now the custodians of that 30-year period of unbroken economic growth. It remains to be seen whether they'll be up to the test.

Whether it's what we saw in the national accounts today, what we've seen in the economic data since the election or what we've seen over three terms and seven years of negligent inaction and incompetence on the economy, the Australian people can have very little confidence that those opposite are up to the task and up to the test that's about to be set for them.

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