Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

This week we have seen the competing priorities of Labor and the coalition on full display—a coalition obsessed with politics, a coalition obsessed with looking after its mates, and a Labor Party that is on the side of the Australian people. We have raised issues which will impact every Australian worker: the cuts to JobKeeper, the cuts to JobSeeker, the cuts to wages, the cuts to superannuation. Labor is focused on ensuring that we don't just try to fix some of the things that have been destroyed by the pandemic but also emerge stronger and more secure. How do we reconcile the fact that, just as the pandemic has shown the strength of Australian society and Australian values, Australians have looked after each other, looked after their neighbours, looked after their communities and looked after people they've never met and will never meet, with the fact that the government continued to just look after their mates. Just as we have seen that strength in our society, we seen some of the weaknesses that are in our economy: the fact that vulnerable workers were the first to be put off, that whole segments missed out on any support and that Australia's figures for deaths of people in aged care as a proportion of fatalities that have occurred during the pandemic are the worst in the world. Seventy-five per cent of those who lost their lives were aged-care residents. That is worse than anywhere in the world, and this government is in charge of aged care. Of course, we've seen this week how they walk away from their responsibilities.

Today they walked away from responsibility for their own legislation. We asked very specific questions about the clauses there that will get rid of the better off overall test. If you get rid of or suspend the need for workers to be better off overall, what do you think is going to happen? What's the whole objective there? The minister stood up and pretended that clauses that are there across a full page in the legislation aren't there. He said, 'It just says "Insert"', and then didn't read all the clauses that are there, which include, of course, the provision that any business that can say it was impacted by COVID-19 can benefit from these provisions. Guess what? Every business has been impacted by COVID-19. Every citizen in the world has been impacted by COVID-19. But they can't even lie straight over there. Disingenuous, duplicitous, devious: that's what characterises them. They're not economic managers. They're just economic with the truth. We on this side are on the side of Australian workers when it comes to job security. We will be saying to the Australian people: 'We're on your side when it comes to dealing with rising inequality. We're on your side when it comes to dealing with childcare costs. We're on your side when it comes to dealing with opportunity. We're on your side when it comes to dealing with the challenge of climate change.'

Those opposite are led by a man who is characterised by his avoidance of responsibility. He's not on the side of Australians when it gets tough. He goes missing in action. He went missing during the bushfires. Remember that quote: 'I don't hold a hose, mate'? That's what he said. It's the same approach that he's had to the pandemic, when it comes to things that he is specifically responsible for such as aged care and our international borders. Forty thousand Australians remain stranded overseas in spite of the fact they were promised they'd be home by Christmas. On aged care, they still don't have a plan. The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety says that.

The Prime Minister is not on Australians' side when it comes to the cost of living. Childcare costs are due to increase this year by four per cent under the design of the system that the Prime Minister created when he was in charge of that area. And we know that working Australians are particularly in the gun. They speak about things like casual employment. Someone who wants to make themselves a permanent employee can't go to the Fair Work Commission. They have to go to the Federal Court. You can imagine it, can't you: your casual employee out there—classified as casual, being in an irregular job due to the very nature of it—thinking, 'I'll go lawyer-up and go down to the Federal Court.' I mean, these people opposite are so out of touch!

Of course, with their wage cuts they want to hit you in the present. With their war on super they want to hit you in the future. We know that from the former finance minister Mathias Cormann, who says low wages growth is 'a deliberate feature of our economic architecture'. You can see whose side they're on if you compare their attitude towards the former finance minister, who's after a job overseas—we hope he gets it; we on this side back Australians—and has been flying around Europe in a RAAF jet.

An opposition member: With 40,000 stranded!

With 40,000 Australians who can't get home. They say they care about Australian jobs. Ninety thousand jobs in manufacturing have disappeared on their watch—90,000! They dared the car industry to leave—dared it to leave! And when you look at whose side they're on—something this Prime Minister used to talk about—just have a look at the way they deal with vulnerable Australians, who have been hit-up for robodebts and have had to pay back $1.2 billion. If you overestimated how much Centrelink should pay you, you got letters threatening you with jail. You got followed up. Compare that with JobKeeper. If you're a business that overestimates the drop in your income and your profits go up, guess what happens? You can keep the money.

An opposition member: Pocket it!

You can keep the money—you can pocket it—and you can give it as bonuses to executives. In other parts of the world this doesn't happen. Robodebt, or similar things, have happened overseas. The Dutch government resigned just recently over this sort of scandal. The Reserve Bank yesterday spoke about JobSeeker and how we should lift it beyond $40 a day. They said it was 'a matter of fairness'. What did those opposite do? They sent out 'freedom boy' to attack the Reserve Bank and say it wasn't their responsibility.

The fact is that what we see from their side is that they're consistently looking after their mates: sports rorts; Paladin contract; $78 million to Webster Ltd, more than double the valuation for buying up water; the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, $444 million; the Leppington Triangle, $30 million; Helloworld, the scandal that we saw today. We see funding given to the Liberal Party's pollsters to do research—private research—that the government then hide from the Australian people. We see trillion-dollar debt with no legacy from it. We hear a whole lot of announcements but see very little delivery. It is all smirk and mirrors from those opposite, Mr Speaker.

What we need in Australia is a government as good as the Australian people themselves, a government that is truly on the side of working people, that's on the side of families who are dealing with the cost of child care, that's on the side of Australian communities that need appropriate infrastructure and investment, that's on the side of Australians who want to lift their standard of living. In the alternative that we'll be presenting in the lead-up to the next election we'll be doing just that. We'll be saying to Australians: you need a government that is on your side, not a government that's on its own side.

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