Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

This government is great at slogans. They're really good at making up slogans. If they were an advertising company, they'd be a roaring success. But that's not what government is about. Ultimately, people judge us here on what we deliver. And this government is hopeless at delivery. The most tragic example of that is what's happening right now in aged care. There was a great announcement in one of the main committee rooms here in Parliament House back in May setting out a plan to keep aged -are residents safe. And what's happened since? If there was a plan it was a pretty awful one, because it didn't keep residents safe. As we stand here today, more than 450 aged-care residents are dead. I can't think of a more serious failure to deliver than that.

But it's not the only one. There are lots of examples. Think about the press conference announcing the COVIDSafe app. This was our licence to get out of the house. The Prime Minister said it was 'sunscreen that you can put on and it would make you safe'. It had all this promise, and we all signed up. Millions of Australians bought into the idea. We said, 'We'll do it,' and we assumed that, if we did do it, the app would keep us safe—that it would help to trace down people who had the virus and stop the sort of second wave that we're seeing across Victoria now. How many people do you think the app has traced? How many people do you think the app has uncovered? Fourteen. It was a $2 million investment. Millions of Australians downloaded that app, and it has only found 14 people with the virus. This government is great at the slogan but hopeless at the delivery.

It was the same with the arts announcement. Remember the big press conference with Guy Sebastian? There was $250 million to help the arts sector. How much money do you reckon has been spent so far helping out the arts industry? Zero.

It was the same problem with the bushfires. There was more focus on the PR and not enough focus on the problem. The Facebook ad went out before the Army got out. We found out today in the contribution by the member for Watson. He referred to the $650 million bushfire recovery package. How much of that do you think has been spent? It was announced in May, and we found out this week that only 1½ per cent of that money has gone out to bushfire communities. It was announced in May and it is now September.

Another terrible example is superannuation. There was a big promise before the election to keep it, and now they are walking away from that at 100 miles an hour. I tell you what, this will hang around this government's neck like an albatross. Everyone here gets 15.4 per cent super—and this government says 9½ per cent is good enough for everyone else!

The Prime Minister gets 84 grand a year in superannuation. The Treasurer gets 60 grand a year in superannuation. All the Australian people are asking for—all we're asking for here—is a couple of hundred extra bucks for people in their superannuation every year. This government says, 'No, we can't afford that.' That's just plain mean, plain unfair. It's another example of a broken promise and failure to deliver.

The final beauty is HomeBuilder. It was announced three months ago and it took 2½ months before people could even apply. The Declaration of Independence took less than a month to draft, amend and pass. This took 2½ months just to draft an online application form. We had the minister boasting today that 3½ thousand people have applied and, apparently, that's going to save hundreds of thousands of jobs. Do you remember 'renovation rescue'? You could renovate your house. It turns out there was a little bit of a hitch: you had to spend more than 150 grand. Expensive dunny! We find out now from Treasury that, as of the middle of August, only 39 people have applied for that grant.

This government is great at slogans, but slogans don't create jobs, slogans don't save jobs and slogans don't pay the bills. This government is slowly being found out here, because we've got a million people unemployed. Another 400,000 people are expected to lose their jobs by Christmas. Tomorrow we're going to be officially told we're in recession. Recession means pain, pain for millions of Australians around this country. We need a bit less time on slogans and a bit more focus on fixing them, because Australians at the moment are saying to this government: 'Where the bloody hell are you?'

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