Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I always find budget night—certainly for the last eight years of this government—really quite disappointing. That's not because of what the government does but because it has such a small ambition for this country. The government's ambition for this country is so, so small. There's a function that government has that only government can do. That is to look forward at what is coming down the road towards your country, what the opportunities and the threats are, and position your country so that the population of the country and the business of the country don't fall into a hole—to make sure that the country is ready for the change that's coming down the track. That is called leading.

This government doesn't know how to do that. This government not only waits until the problem is well known by experts; it waits until everybody knows about the problem. It waits until the crisis is so great that the population is screaming for an answer, and then it puts its hand and up and says, 'We'll do something about that.' But let me say this, you of small ambition: after eight years of government, if there's a crisis in this country its yours. If there's a crisis in aged care, it's yours. It's a federal responsibility. If there's a crisis after eight years of a Liberal government, you should have done something about it before, and you should have seen it coming: the ageing of the population, climate change, growing gig work, the changing nature of data and its role, the decline in economies of scale as a source of competitive advantage, the ageing of the population, and the fragmentation of supply chains and what that means for our tax revenue. These are things that we all know about. We know they're coming, and yet this is a government that doesn't even look at them.

I understand that when it comes to climate change we have a problem: a Liberal government has never governed in its own right ever in its entire history. It needs the Nationals to govern, so there's a bit of an agreement going on, and no-one knows what it is. I understand the problem. But their role is to do something about it; their role is to look forward and do something about it, and yet they wait for the crisis. It's as if the marketing Prime Minister has decided, 'Let's not bother to do anything about it until everybody knows.' There's no point in solving a problem if no-one knows there was a problem in the first place! There's no point in that for Mr Marketing Man, 'Let's wait until the crisis is so great that everyone knows about it and we can take the credit for solving it.'

You could be forgiven for believing that that's what this government are doing, because for so many years they've ignored the extraordinary crises that have been decimating some people in our communities. There's aged care: malnutrition and people lying in faeces. There are, literally, people dying while waiting for home-care packages—really. Let's look at aged care just for a moment, because it's actually really quite interesting.

The aged-care royal commission, which we called for for ages, was called in October 2018. There was an interim report, called Neglect, on 31 October 2019. The crisis was known before the calling of the aged-care royal commission. It was certainly known in all of its glory on 31 October 2019, and this government sat on its hands while people literally suffered—while families suffered. Then, during COVID: 'Aged-care? Not our problem.' It was their problem.

Let's look at child care. There's a childcare package in the budget—well, so there should be. When Prime Minister Scott Morrison was still the minister, he offered the best-ever package of child care in 2015, just before an election. He didn't legislate it until 2017. He introduced it in 2018, just before an election—surprise, surprise! But over the 2½ years since then all the benefit has dissipated, so we're back to square one. In fact, we're worse off.

Now, just before an election again, there's another announcement. There's a pattern with this government: wait until the crisis is really, really great and then wait until an election year comes along and announce it. Wait until the crisis comes. Their ambition is so small; they're the wrong government for the times that we're in. We're in a world that's changing rapidly, where the opportunities have to be grasped and where they have to do things in a country where the population doesn't even know there's a problem because they're ahead of it—because they're leaders and can see what opportunities are coming down the road, and they put Australia in position for them. That's the job of a government all the time, but at no time in Australia's history has it been more relevant than it is now. And that is not those over there; they're the wrong government for the time, and the budget shows it.

It's a budget where they solve the crises that they've caused—that they sat on and ignored for eight years. Then, finally, they put their hands up and said, 'We're doing something about it in an election year,' and they expect praise for it. To the previous speaker, who asked, 'Why don't they find something good to say about the government,' it's because their ambition is too small, too little and too late. They're solving the problems that they caused and then they expect credit for it.

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