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

I think it's important, when we consider the budget that was handed down by the Treasurer from that dispatch box last night, to think about whether or not there are areas of common ground, areas where we can find agreement with the government, things that the government has said in the 24 hours or so since the budget was handed down that we agree with.

I noticed at lunchtime today, when the Treasurer was giving his speech to the National Press Club, he said something that I agreed with 100 per cent. He said that the budget that was handed down last night was a very liberal budget. It was a very liberal budget, I think, in one incredibly important respect. Only the Liberal Party of Morrison and Frydenberg could find a way to spend $100 billion in one night, rack up a trillion dollars in debt and still have the working people of this country go backwards. Only the Liberal Party of Morrison and Frydenberg could find a way to say to the workers of this country, 'We are going to spray all kinds of money around for political purposes to get us through an election. We are going to spray money around at all the problems that have piled up over the past eight long years of this government. But we're going to find a way to make sure that the thanks you get for the sacrifices you made during this pandemic is a cut in real wages.' That is a defining failure and a defining feature of the budget that was handed down last night.

It was an admission of failure that, despite all of that money being spent, all of that money being borrowed, all of those commitments being made and all of those announcements that were made from the dispatch box over there, at the end of that, Australians have to look forward to one thing: a cut in their real wages. This would be bad enough if it were an isolated failure, but what we on this side of the House as the representatives of Australian working people know is that stagnant wages growth has been with us for much of the eight long years that those opposite have been government and that this wasn't the first budget that they handed down from over there; it was the eighth budget that they handed down. It is worth a trip down memory lane to remember that the failure at the core of this 2021 budget is not an isolated failure; it is a pattern of behaviour.

I've got all the budgets here. The 2014 budget was all about repairing the budget before they went on to hand down the biggest deficits in history and more debt than any government has ever handed down. The budget the year after that, 2015, was about a fairer pension system; at its core were cuts to the pension. In 2016 the budget was all about jobs and growth, just before we went into a cycle of anaemic growth and high underemployment. The 2017 budget was a budget for better days ahead, not that far ahead of the Morrison recession. The 2018 budget—on track to deliver budget surpluses and living within our means! The 2019 budget delivers a surplus! This was the budget with all of the 'back in black' mugs that they flogged from the Liberal Party website. The centrepiece of the 2020 budget was the JobMaker program that promised 450,000 jobs and delivered just over 1,000 jobs. It's like if your mate owed you $450 and gave you $1—you wouldn't be happy with that! That was the defining feature of the last budget, and then we get to last night.

Last night was all of the spin and all of the marketing, but at the very core of this budget, as colleagues have mentioned today, was that cut in real wages. This isn't just one year of failure; this is eight years of getting the budget wrong. The next budget that those opposite land will be the first one that they land. That's one of the many reasons why the credibility of those opposite on the economy is completely shredded. We should put these eight budgets into the dumpster fire of inconsistency, economic mismanagement and humiliating backdowns which have characterised the way those opposite have gone about the economy.

If we couldn't believe the first seven budgets handed down by those opposite then obviously the eighth is not worth the paper that it's written on as well, with one exception—that is, that cut to real wages that the government themselves admit is at the core of their budget. This is not a number that we've generated. It's not a forecast that we've come up with. Right there in the government's own budget is a cut to real wages. Penetrating this haze of marketing, spin, self-congratulation and self-regard is one little kernel of searing honesty, which is that Australian workers will be worse off at the end of all of this than they were at the beginning. That is the outcome of the budget of those opposite.

On this side of the House we find it hard to understand how those opposite can be so happy with themselves when we've got almost two million unemployed or underemployed and when we've still got all of this wage stagnation, job insecurity and all the rest of it. But then we are reminded almost every day that, in another burst of searing honesty, the former finance minister—the longest-serving minister on that side of the House—said that stagnant wages growth was a deliberate design feature of their economic policy. So no wonder they think 'mission accomplished' when it comes to this budget, because they are never happier than when the working people of this country are being held back. They are never happier than when they can screw down people's wages and treat them like an input cost into business rather than human beings that want to work hard to provide for the people they love. They are never happier than when that is the outcome.

The economy is emerging from the deepest, most damaging recession in almost 100 years. It brought to an end almost three decades of continuous economic growth. This side of the House is especially proud of starting that economic growth and having saved it when it was at maximum risk just over 10 years ago. But we've had this recession. As we emerge from it, the task of all of us in this building, all of us in this House, is to do what we can to make the economy and society stronger after COVID-19 than it was before COVID-19. In recognising that the economy is recovering, the lion's share of the credit goes to the Australian people who did the right thing by each other. They made sacrifices for each other to limit the spread of this virus, and in that sacrifice lay the kernel of this country's success.

But all of that is being put at risk by the political approach of those opposite—the marketing and spin; the chasm between announcement and delivery. All of that momentum, which is a tribute to the Australian people, is put at risk in at least three ways by the way those opposite go about governing the country. The first is this vaccinations debacle. We saw it again in question time today. The Treasurer, the Prime Minister, the health minister in the media earlier today and the finance minister, all have a different story to tell about when Australians will be vaccinated. The budget was an opportunity for this government to come clean on the costs and consequences of completely stuffing up the vaccine rollout. Instead we are more confused. The Australian people are more confused now than before the budget on when they will get vaccinated and what that means for the economy. As the member for Dobell said, we cannot have a first-rate economic recovery if we have a third-rate vaccine rollout.

The recovery is also put at risk by the fact that those opposite, particularly the Prime Minister, but also the Treasurer and all of the cabinet, are always looking for a political angle, they're always looking for a way to get themselves through the next election. When the country desperately needed a plan for good, secure, well-paid jobs to grow the economy in a broad, inclusive and sustainable way, to repair our economy, and, in doing so, help to repair our society after COVID-19—instead of taking the longer term view, those opposite are always playing the angles. All the money that was sprayed around last night was not because they believe there's an issue in aged care or child care or skills and training. If they believed in any of these things, they would have done something on any of the other days in the past eight years they have been in office. Instead, they take this overtly political approach to this country and to its people.

Last night's budget had a number of deficits in it. At the very core there were obviously deficits as far as the eye could see. But perhaps the biggest deficit in the budget last night was a deficit of vision. There was a deficit of vision when it came to what this country could be and what role we wanted to give the Australian people in the future of this place, and how we give them a slice of the action as the economy recovers. We recognise that a recovery is not a recovery at all if working people are left behind, if working people don't get a look in. That is the most important task of this budget, and that is the task that those opposite failed.

As always, with this deficit of vision, it is left to Labor, under the member for Grayndler and our colleagues on this side of the House, to provide that vision. We will show the Australian people that, as we recover from COVID-19, and as the economy starts to gather pace, we can make sure the Australian people, and particularly Australian workers, are front and centre and that they benefit from this recovery. If they don't, this budget's not worth the paper it's written on.

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