Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

If after eight long years the Australian people didn't know it already, the one thing that we can be sure of now is that the Morrison government cares more about its own image than it does about Australian citizens. The legacy of this Liberal-National government will be that they saddled future generations of Australians with debt without delivering any actual economic benefit to the majority of Australian citizens. Again and again this government has been dragged kicking and screaming to the table on issues which are important to all Australians. They only acknowledge the needs of Australian communities when it's politically convenient, not when it is most necessary. They make grand promises but rarely stick around to ensure that their promises are fulfilled, caring more about a photo-op than they do about the communities they claim to help. When the smoke is clear and we look back on the legacy of the Morrison government, we will see a government that abandoned Australians in need and cared more about scoring cheap political shots than supporting real people.

You don't need to look any further than this year's budget to see that the Morrison government care more about their image than they do about Australians. The budget is yet another marketing exercise that tries and fails to rebrand the mismanagement and missed opportunities that define the eight long years of this Liberal-National government. Despite plunging Australia into over $1 trillion of debt, the Morrison government's budget revealed that real wages for real Australians are only going to go backwards.

Despite their claiming, even today, that they're on the side of working Australians, at the end of the day it is only the highest income earners who are going to enjoy the tax benefits touted in the government's budget. We need to be clear: for low-income workers, they are extending the low-income tax offset for one year to get themselves through an election, but for themselves—for every member of parliament and every high-income earner—there is an extra nine grand in their pocket. When the government talk about anything, all they are really talking about is themselves. That's all that matters. Once the election is done, the low-income tax offset's gone and we will have low-income earners paying more tax in two years than they are today. So take away the smoke and mirrors. Take away all the garbage. The simple fact is this: if you're a low-income earner, this government will make you pay more tax in two years than you do today while the members of the government themselves each pocket a minimum of $9,000. They want to pretend that they're on the side of working families, but reality shows that those most in need of support are the ones the government plans to leave behind.

The government's budget makes for grim reading, and it gets worse when you scratch below the surface. It was based on an assumption that all Australians would be vaccinated at the end of the year. Remember, we were told that four million would be vaccinated by March. When did that happen? There was a 90 per cent miss. There was $60 billion for JobKeeper missing in last year's budget. This government has not hit any targets. The only thing that they have reached 100 per cent on is the failure to actually live up to what they've put out. They have failed on every single occasion. Their only 100 per cent success rate is failing to meet their targets. The people out on the streets are the ones who feel it the most.

The failed effort of this government on the vaccine rollout means it's no longer expected to happen. In fact, yesterday the Prime Minister couldn't even name a time or a date when people would be fully vaccinated. The most fundamental thing to do during a pandemic is to look after the Australian people, yet they look themselves more than they look after anyone else. When the government based its budget on the false assumption all Australians are going to be vaccinated, they failed to provide any real benefits to the majority of Australians. We can only wonder just how much worse the reality is going to be when the full impacts of this failed vaccine program are realised.

The government wants this budget to be one that addresses the PR crisis, not a national health crisis. They thought the budget would save them from glaring issues that have risen with regards to their attitudes towards women, their failure to protect aged-care residents and their failure to provide quarantine facilities and a vaccine rollout capable of bringing Australia out of this pandemic along with the rest of the world. The government's own budget didn't even achieve that. It aimed to be a marketing exercise that would save the government from admitting their gross failure to the Australian people but it has failed.

We never heard one word for pensioners. Pensioners are suffering with not getting extra support and facing rising costs of living. What did the government do? It slammed the door on them, turned its back and said, 'We don't care about you'. The Australian people can see that the vast majority of them are going to be worse off under this government. They can see their children, and generations upon generations of Australians, are going to be saddled with the national debt topping $1 trillion. What do we have to show for it? There's no vision, no nothing for 10, 20 or 30 years. There's no prospect of wage growth under the Morrison government. The members opposite laugh about that. They think that's funny. There's no plan to address the housing affordability crisis facing so many families and no plan to protect workers' rights. It's never been more clear that a Liberal-National government is leaving Australia behind.

Along with the trillion dollars of debt which the Morrison government has accrued and the lack of real wage growth across our industry, it should come as no surprise that the Morrison government is failing to protect Australian workers. Not only are Australians having to accept uncontrolled house prices and stagnant wages but the issue of workplace safety and employment security are being ignored by this government as well. Only Labor has committed to the criminalisation of wage theft. The rights for gig economy workers, through the Fair Work Commission, for job security, should be explicitly inserted into the Fair Work Act. And Labor has proposed a comprehensive plan to tackle the gender pay gap. The Morrison government has not. Instead, the Morrison government has ignored Australian workers and their calls for criminalisation of wage theft. It is estimated that wage theft costs workers $1.3 billion every year. That is money coming out of the pockets of essential workers and young Australians and it's going straight into the piggy banks of big business and the donor friends of the government's frontbench. It has never been more clear that the Morrison government is abandoning Australian workers, the hard-working men and women of this country who have supported Australia throughout the pandemic, particularly our essential workers on the frontline—in health care, in education and, of course, in retail. They deserve a better government which is not going to be condemning them to lives without the possibility of growing wages and financial security.

One of the so-called key successes that the government talks about is their HomeBuilder grant scheme. But beyond the one success story that the government's lauded, the HomeBuilder grant scheme has failed hundreds of families, causing stress and uncertainty for the many people it was designed to help. Families are being left behind by this government, overwhelmed by the bureaucracy, the misinformation that has defined this government. Two brothers bought homes right next door to each other in Wallan, one of the many towns in the electorate of McEwan. Like so many young Australians they hoped to build their homes, their futures, their families with the assistance of the HomeBuilder grant scheme. Both brothers faced delays in receiving commencement dates from the builders, which are required for applications to proceed. Despite already having begun their application for the HomeBuilder grant scheme, they found out they were unable to continue the application after these delays, having literally been locked out of the application system. These brothers relied on the grant scheme in order to secure loans for their homes. Now that they have been shut out from accessing that grant their future is uncertain. This is the case for so many Australians who've been shut out from accessing this scheme due to circumstances beyond their control.

The HomeBuilder scheme originally required prospective recipients to have already signed a contract with a builder prior to applying. The process of planning renovations, securing finance and receiving council approval is complicated and extensive. What the Morrison government has continued to overlook is that the HomeBuilder scheme requires an immense amount of effort to apply for, as applicants are forced to jump through hoop after hoop to meet deadlines and cut-off dates that are unrealistic and to meet documentary requirements that are far too complex. Families are being left behind under this government. The coalition want us to believe that, just because their scheme has assisted a minority of prospective first home buyers, it's been a success. It hasn't. The hypocrisy of this grant is that you can be a first home buyer in every state. You can live in Victoria, buy a house in Queensland and get a first home buyer grant, then pop over to WA and buy another one. How is that helping young people? It doesn't. It doesn't help people get homes.

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