Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Let me repeat: In the Melbourne Cup field of economic duds, Scott Morrison's government has come first, second and third, with the biggest government debt in our nation's 121 years of history—$1 trillion worth of debt. I am going to say that again—it's a big number: $1 trillion worth of debt. They were going to bring the budget back into balance. Remember the red coffee cups? They are good at producing marketing material, but they are not very good at reducing debt or bringing the budget deficit down. They have produced the two biggest deficits in 121 years of Australian Commonwealth history. They are the second-highest taxing government, as the member for Rankin has set out—coming in a narrow second, beaten by a nose by the record of the Fraser government under the treasurership of John Howard and the government of John Howard himself. They have overseen the biggest government waste of taxpayer money in our nation's history, hands down, with $20 billion—in fact, probably more than $20 billion—in taxpayers' money squandered on a program that was supposed to help businesses that were making a loss. These jokers over here gave it to companies that were making bumper profits and sending it on to their directors. The member for Fenner has done a magnificent job of exposing the government's incompetence on this issue.

I want to make a point about the $20 billion. It's almost as much as we spend on Medicare and twice as much as we spend on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. These are not small amounts of money—$1 trillion worth of debt, $20 billion squandered. Tell us again how this mob are so good at managing money. You wouldn't leave them alone with your pocket money! This comes off the back of the sports rorts affair, the car park rorts affair and the infamous community development grants which somehow only go to government-held community electorates. This mob are the champions of rorts.

I thought a former senator from Western Australia hit the low-water mark when he described the government's wages policy suppressing wages as 'a deliberate design feature'. Is there any surprise that, under this government, workers' wages are going backwards? They are going backwards at a rate of knots. We've had the lowest wages growth in over 50 years. We used to think it was a design feature, but today we had the spokesman for industrial relations in the House tell us that anybody who complained about the fact their wages were going down was making it up—anybody who complains about wages problems is making it up! When these guys talk about coalminers, they don't have in mind the people who go down and run the longwalls or the people who come back from work dirty. When they think about coalminers, they think about Marius Kloppers and Gina Rinehart; they're the people they have in mind. If you work in a mine, you know the biggest threat to your wages and job security is the fact that employers are using labour hire to undermine job security and drive down wages. It's not just in the mining industry; it's rife in the Hunter. We saw the Deputy Prime Minister duck the question, but it's rife in the Hunter and he would not acknowledge that issue. And these blokes reckon we're making it up! I'd welcome their coming out to my electorate or any other electorate to talk about the made-up issue of labour hire. They are so out of touch— (Time expired)

See this speech in context