Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Environment) Share this | Hansard source

That's right. Twenty-five million Australians—it's a sensational budget for every single one. However you might consider that, that is some seriously tone-deaf, own trumpet-blowing right there. At a time of crisis, when so many people are facing the most difficult year they've ever experienced, to describe it as a 'ripper' of a budget and say it is 'sensational' for each and every Australian is pretty rich and it's certainly tone-deaf. Does the government really think that the millions of Australians facing these circumstances—a global pandemic; the first recession in 30 years; the sharpest and deepest recession in almost a century—regard what they have just announced as being 'sensational'? People on JobKeeper are already seeing support being withdrawn and they know that it will be taken away all together, and there are so many sectors of the economy that have not even begun to recover—people in aviation, people in the arts and culture industries, people in tourism. The support was delivered too late, and it's being taken away too soon.

Then there are all the millions who were excluded in the first place—casuals who have worked fewer than 12 months, people in local government, people in universities, people in arts and cultural work and businesses. There are the people on JobSeeker, who do not know, since the budget was announced, what is going to happen to them. Some of the people who are currently on JobKeeper will be on JobSeeker before too long. More than a million Australians are going to see their support go down to $40 a day. That is below the poverty level. Do they think that the budget is sensational? They haven't been given the certainty of what is going to happen to them in the months to come.

Then there are the students in the university courses who know that their fees are about to double. In a time of recession, when there isn't work, when you've got massive unemployment that is already staggering and will grow by a further 160,000 people before Christmas, according to the Treasurer himself, young people understandably think, 'I might as well take this opportunity to try and get some training and some education for my future.' Well, in all of the courses in the humanities and some related areas, fees are about to double. There are the Australians stranded overseas. Do they think it's a sensational budget? Then there are the small and medium businesses in all of the sectors I mentioned, but particularly tourism, arts and culture, transport and logistics and aviation. Do they think it's a sensational budget? I don't think so.

I want to spend a little bit of time on the particular circumstances of the workers and small businesses in the arts and creative sector. I'm lucky to come from and to represent a community where arts and creative industries are a strong feature of our life—our personal lives, our cultural life and our economic life. But this has always been a 'heroes and villains' government: if they like you, you get a gift; if they don't like you, you get a whack. That's the one thing we know about this government. There are tax cuts for big business, even if they're massively profitable, even if they're based overseas, but job cuts for the public broadcaster. If you're a Liberal donor and you've got a $3 million piece of land: 'How about we pay you $30 million instead?' How do you like them apples? That's not too bad. But if you want to study the humanities, like most of the members of the government did: 'Sorry, the cost of your degree has just doubled.'

The arts and creative sector has been in the gun sight for years, thanks to this government. Does that make any sense whatsoever in the 21st century? No. It's a massive part of our life and a massive part of our economy, and it's going to and should get stronger in future. It employs 650,000 people—53,000 people in Western Australia alone. In 2017 it contributed $111 billion to the economy. In March, as the pandemic hit, I Lost My Gig Australia helped take stock of the impact on arts and cultural businesses. Half a million workers were impacted. In terms of business lost, 240,000 jobs disappeared and $330 million worth of projects disappeared. That was in March. The ABS noted at the end of March that, while 90 per cent of all businesses in Australia were still operating to some degree at the end of March, only 47 per cent of arts businesses were still operating. It was the worst-affected industry. It will be one of the slowest to emerge from the circumstances we now face. But the sector hasn't been adequately supported by JobKeeper. It's one of those areas of Australian life that was just ignored and neglected by the government.

As with so many of their announcements, where the funding doesn't appear, the direct funding announced by the government hasn't appeared. That's been true for arts and cultural businesses and their workers, including, in terms of the difference between announcement and delivery, some of the businesses and the people that the government used in their media stunts for the announcements. Some of those people have subsequently had to put up their hand and say, 'Even we haven't received the promised funding.' It's just ridiculous. Rather than make reforms that would be helpful to arts and creative industry businesses and their workers, the government's decided in a crisis to take away the local content requirements for the screen industry that are essential to maintaining a distinctively Australian cultural sector—to see and hear and learn from and be enriched and uplifted by Australian voices, Australian stories, Australian songs and Australian films. They have been let down; they have been neglected by this government throughout its life; and then they are facing a particularly cold shoulder through the circumstances of a COVID-19 pandemic. It is appalling.

I said that the budget should be judged on how it meets the needs of the Australian community and how it provides long-lasting benefits. We know that, despite a trillion dollars of debt, there will be millions of Australians left in the cold. To make it worse, the government has not taken the opportunity to look at areas of longer-lasting reforms, things that will provide benefits to all of us in the future, notwithstanding this eye-watering, gargantuan sum of money that has been borrowed and spent that can never be borrowed and spent again. There's no focus on early child care or aged care, when we know that the care economy is going to be such a big part of our life—for our own benefit, for our health and wellbeing, but also as a source of jobs and economic activity. There's no focus in the budget on modernising our energy supply, not surprisingly from a government that can't even settle a national energy policy. There's no focus on social housing, despite the difference that makes to the lives of people facing acute disadvantage and the way in which it provides stimulus to local economies around the country. Over the seven years they have presided over the loss of 140,000 apprentices, and that's caused key shortages that we're now dealing with. Only in the last week or so they've finally admitted to themselves that delivering that National Broadband Network using 19th century copper wasn't such a bright idea. Now it's going to cost billions more in funding and take years longer, as they start to turn the ship around and go back to Labor's policy of delivering fibre.

In a time of crisis that has a number of elements, the pandemic chief among them but not alone, it's crucial that government spend wisely. The gargantuan borrowing and spending exercise cannot be done twice. It should be focused on the needs of the Australian community and it should deliver lasting benefits. Unfortunately, the Morrison government's economic management was weak before the crisis, and the Morrison government's economic response to date has been warped during the crisis so far, not just ignoring huge sections of the community, but ignoring some of the people who need the help the most. The government's response has every appearance of being wasteful because it doesn't focus on the delivery of lasting benefits. At every point in the last seven years you'd struggle to identify a recognisable agenda or a positive program that this government might be seeking to implement. In fact, I defy anyone to point to one notable reform or lasting achievement of this coalition government. They were elected as the masters of negativity. They set one task for themselves, which was to reduce debt, and they have comprehensively failed to do that. They doubled it before the pandemic, and it will quadruple by the time we get through the pandemic. They have neglected to do anything in aged care or early childhood education. They have made a howling mess of Australia's broadband network. They've been unable to settling on a national energy policy. They've hammered both our vocational and our university education sectors. They've waged a cultural and funding war on public broadcasters. They've sat on their hands as we face an extinction crisis and the impacts of climate change. Weak, warped, wasteful—that's been the record of this government. Unfortunately it's a theme they continue with this budget, when Australia needs them to do so much better.

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