Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

MULINO () (): Congratulations, Deputy Speaker Claydon, on your well-deserved elevation to that important role. This MPI discussion reminds me of a person who holds a raucous party. The next morning, after having created a gigantic mess, somebody else must come to help clean it up, and they stand there with arms crossed, tapping their toe impatiently and complaining about the speed with which the other person is cleaning up that mess. That's exactly what we're facing here today: a gigantic mess created by those opposite after a decade of inaction, and then they snipe at a government that has undertaken more in two months than they did in a decade.

The shadow Treasurer quoted Harold Macmillan as saying that public life and politics exposes one to unforeseeable events. I can understand the shadow Treasurer having a fondness for the 1950s, given that his views on climate change would fit very well in that era, and I do acknowledge the views of Harold Macmillan, to the extent that there are unforeseeable events in public life. Having said that, I think that unforeseeable events do not give one licence for complete mismanagement and ineptness in the lead-up to those events.

That is what is so galling and so inappropriate about the motion we see here today. Well before COVID, well before supply chains were seizing up and well before the Ukraine invasion, the previous government was mismanaging the economy on a whole range of fronts. Even though there were some unforeseeable events, what was entirely foreseeable is that, no matter what events were over the horizon, the previous government was not going to make the economy as resilient as it should have been, experiencing nine years of the lowest productivity growth in decades. No matter what events were over the horizon, having the lowest real wages growth over a decade since the Great Depression was never going to help households to cope with those events. And no matter what events were over the horizon, it was never going to be a good idea, under any circumstances, to have a decade with 22 ridiculous energy policies, none of which were implemented, and to take no action on climate change. So yes, there were some unforeseeable events, but the previous government so mismanaged the economy in the lead-up to those events that it placed our economy and our society in a much more vulnerable situation than it needed to be.

The other part of the motion is equally as galling and equally as inaccurate. It says that this government, the current government, should take action now and not in October. Let's look at the first element of what this government is proposing and already taking action on: let's look at wages. During the course of the campaign, we proposed a five per cent wage increase for those on the lowest wages, for those who are the most exposed to inflation increases. Those opposite said that that would destroy the economy, that it was highly irresponsible: $1 an hour was too much, they said. This government—not in October but as soon as taking power—made a recommendation to the Fair Work Commission, and the Fair Work Commission has in fact made a decision to increase those wages by 5.2 per cent. And now the opposition comes in here and says, 'Well, you're not doing enough.' So, in the lead-up to the election, they were saying 5.2 per cent was ridiculously irresponsible, and now they come in here and say, 'We want you to do more and we want you to do it sooner.' Well, we're not waiting until October. We made a submission to the Fair Work Commission and there has already been action—a 5.2 per cent wage increase for those who are most vulnerable, which will make a real difference to those individuals and those families in the face of the inflation that we are currently experiencing and the inflation that is in the pipeline.

What about the cost of living? Again, this government is passing bills this week that deal with a whole raft of issues. This government is prioritising action on child care, which will help 1.26 million families by reducing the cost of child care for those families. That will have a direct impact on the prices of child care and, in turn, will have a significant impact on productivity, participation and the supply side of the economy. Finally, clean energy: a decade of inaction from those opposite, and we come in this week and we put a bill onto the table which would immediately provide certainty for investors, and those opposite say we should be doing more and doing it more quickly. The hypocrisy is utterly ridiculous. We do have a plan to ease cost-of-living pressures. We understand the urgency of taking action to ease cost-of-living pressures, and we are taking action right now.

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