Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

What the government wants and what the government has shown throughout this pandemic is that we have a dedication and commitment to helping businesses continue to employ hundreds of thousands—millions—of Australians, and that is precisely what has happened during this pandemic. Quite frankly, we have done so in the face of fierce opposition from the Labour Party, who purport to represent workers but take every opportunity to slow the process of this parliament or the decisions of this government in rescuing and saving those jobs. So to have the member for Watson come in here today and to be speaking so passionately for the conditions of workers—it is hollow. Because the member for Watson and the Labor Party have taken an approach which would ultimately have led to fewer Australians being in work.

The dedication and commitment of the Morrison government throughout the pandemic has been: what can we do to support all Australian businesses—small, medium and large businesses—to continue to employ their workforces in the face of a once-in-100-years pandemic? It's about how we can support those businesses to continue to invest and, now that we're in the recovery phase, how we can encourage those businesses—with their capital reserves and with the resources that they have now been able to build up in the midst of a recovery—to have the confidence that they need to make further decisions to employ even more Australians.

We've seen that it's working. We've seen that, since September, 347,000 Australians have got back into work. Contrary to what the member for Watson says, if you look at the unemployment data and the employment statistics in recent years, even during the pandemic, the vast majority of new jobs created have been full-time jobs, which do have the protections that he speaks about. But you don't hear that from the Labor Party. You don't hear the Labor Party congratulating the government on critical decisions that we took during the pandemic with JobKeeper and HomeBuilder. You don't see the Labor Party congratulating the government on putting more money in the pockets of workers through our tax cuts.

We've seen that, since the 2018-19 income year, an Australian worker on a salary of $60,000 a year has been $6½ thousand better off due to the tax cuts and the personal income tax reductions put in place by our government. The Labor Party might not think that $6½ thousand means much to those people, but we in the Morrison government know that it does. We know that in the end, Australians look at their pay packet and what they get after tax. That's ultimately what is in their pockets and what they are able to use to provide for their families.

Does anyone seriously think that the Labor Party, as the Morrison government has done, would put in place tax policies that will see 95 per cent of Australians not paying a higher marginal tax rate than 30c in the dollar? Of course not. Before the last election, the Labor Party took a litany, a succession, of new taxes to the election, which would've hit the exact people that the member for Watson purports to care about today in his MPI. Whether it was taxes on superannuation, taxes on retirees, taxes on housing or higher personal income taxes—you name it—it would've hit millions and millions of Australians.

Does anyone seriously think that the Labor Party, since the 2019 election, have had a major conversion of their views on higher taxes? Does anyone really believe that the member for Rankin, who said he was very proud of their tax plans before the 2019 election, has suddenly had a major conversion on these topics? No. What we see from the Labor Party is not that they have had some massive change of heart. All we're seeing from the Labor Party is that they're going to hide their true intentions on one side of an election and do something different on the other side. That's the only thing that's changed.

I criticise the member for Maribyrnong for many things, and he deserves criticism for many things, but at least he was honest before the last election. At least he was honest that he had a plan for $387 billion of higher taxes. They were so proud of it that they set up very nice photographs with their economic team in the lead-up to the election. How proud they were of those higher taxes. Give him credit—at least he was honest about it. What we now see from the Labor Party is blatant dishonesty, hiding those things on one side of an election. Does anyone seriously think that they've had a major conversion since the 2019 election? Does anyone seriously think that those taxes that they were very proud of are all of a sudden taxes that they repudiate?

To go to wages: the latest ABS data has shown that private sector wages are up 2.4 per cent over the year. This is the highest it's been through the year since December 2014. In March or April last year—when the pandemic was hitting, lockdowns were first being put in place and businesses were being forcibly closed in response to health orders—if anybody had said then that unemployment now would be 5.2 per cent and that private sector wages for the year would be up 2.4 per cent, every right-thinking member of this House would've said, 'We would take that in a heartbeat.'

The member for Rankin, to his credit, set a test. He said the government's economic approach would be borne out by the unemployment figures. It was an interesting test. It's not a test that he has continued to speak about, but it was a marker of success that he himself put in place. Now we see unemployment at 5.2 per cent—lower than when we came to government and lower than the rising unemployment we saw under the former Labor government, of which the member for Rankin was a very important member, being Wayne Swan's brain. He thinks that's a compliment. If he thinks that's a compliment, good luck to him. We now see unemployment at 5.2 per cent, and, as the RBA have said, there's an expectation that with the economic recovery we're seeing now it could even be significantly lower than that. That's the true test. The true test of our economic response to this pandemic is borne out by those figures.

Who would have thought—again, thinking back to March or April last year—that one of the major complaints we would hear from the Australian business community would be the massive labour constraints that are now being felt. That is difficult for those businesses but it's a far superior problem to have than the alternative, which is higher unemployment, putting even less pressure on wages, which would consequently mean lower wages growth—not the 2.4 per cent that we've seen through the year, in the middle of a pandemic, which compares favourably to almost any jurisdiction in the world.

In discussing and thinking about the Labor Party's approach to these things, their response to one of the most successful programs put in place by the Morrison government last year, the HomeBuilder program, tells the story. The HomeBuilder program, which we put in place in June last year, provides grants to help predominantly first-time buyers purchase a new home and to support the one million people who work in the residential construction industry—the tradies, the plumbers, the carpenters, the concreters, the architects, the designers, the landscapers, the roofers. It helps a million Australians who work in the residential construction industry, yet the Labor Party criticised and opposed the policy. The Leader of the Opposition, to his great shame, said these grants would just be providing 'gold taps and pearl baths' to HomeBuilder grant recipients. There are 135,000 HomeBuilder projects, through which we've seen new construction of detached housing up by nearly 35 per cent—higher than prepandemic levels. Every single tradie in this country is busy, is gainfully employed, is working hard with the support of that program. The Labor Party opposed it. The Labor Party criticised it. That is emblematic of everything they have done during this pandemic. The Morrison government supports jobs and wages growth.

See this speech in context