Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

We've seen three consecutive quarters, nine months, where business investment has gone backwards. Labour productivity is pretty much the No. 1 indicator for whether the engine of the economy is ticking over right. If you get a sound in the motor, where productivity isn't working, you know that there's something fundamentally wrong. We've seen it declining for a long time. Net debt has more than doubled, gross debt has risen to over half a trillion dollars and doubled under the Liberal and National parties. Let's not forget that. This is an economy of their making, as we settled into the seven wasted years now of a coalition government.

I know the 'black summer' was difficult for Australians. We know that the coronavirus will add additional challenges for tourism in Queensland—or tourism all around Australia, I should say—and on the number of international education students coming here, who are such a boost for my electorate in particular. All of these challenges mean that we need a government to step up, and what do we have? The person who drives this—I've seen treasurers up close. I worked with Wayne Swan. I've seen what he's like as a human being. I understand why internationally recognised people say that Wayne Swan was cometh the hour, cometh the man. Cometh the hour, cometh the man! He stepped up and was able to work with the opposition at the time. I will stress that: the opposition leader at the time did work with the government for a while, in terms of recognising the dire straits.

But what do we have? We have a guy who's focused on himself, happy to trot out Liberal Party merchandising—'back in black' mugs. Perhaps he should be working on 'lady in red' or something like that, because we've got these big challenges coming! They've failed all the tests that they've set themselves. We've got a Treasurer who stands up at that despatch box and attacks the Hindu community, going for a cheap laugh—

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