Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

One of the favourite untruths or falsehoods those opposite with delicate sensibilities at times in the Liberal and National parties love to spread is that somehow they are better economic managers. It is complete nonsense. It's brand propaganda and not borne out by the facts. As you would know, Dr Charlton, the two highest-taxing governments in modern Australian history were, No. 1, John Howard's and, No. 2, the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government on the tax-to-GDP ratio. That's an inconvenient fact for the brand propaganda over there.

As I said, the first surplus delivered by an Australian government for over 15 years was by this Labor government. It's too early to know where we are going to land this year, but it's entirely possible and plausible that we'll get a second surplus budget in a row, putting the downward pressure on interest rates that Australians want to see.

A trillion dollars of Liberal debt they were heading towards, with not enough to show for it. They can't hide behind and blame COVID for this. They doubled the debt even before COVID, another inconvenient fact they don't like to talk about. Real wages went backwards under the Liberal and National parties. On real wages now, we have seen two consecutive quarters of real wages growth, with four per cent in the last quarter, the highest wage growth we have seen for 15 years. These are inconvenient economic facts.

The budget appropriation bill before the House ensures that the budget repair which the government is engaged in not is coming at the expense of cost-of-living relief. The budget provides energy bill relief, cheaper medicine, cheaper child care and the biggest single increase in Commonwealth rent assistance in 30 years. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has confirmed that our cost-of-living policies have already reduced inflation by half a percentage point, and Treasury estimates they'll reduce inflation by three-quarters of a percentage point by the June quarter this year. The disciplined approach to spending has made room for additional investments to grow the capacity of the economy and lay stronger foundations for growth in the coming years in energy, housing and skills.

We are sometimes a bit unfair on the opposition. We are not allowed them to call them the 'no-alition', but it is a fact that they say no to pretty much any proposition put forward in the parliament, whether it is legislation, a policy proposal or a new idea. But we're a bit unfair when we say that they have no policies because, to be fair, they do have a few policies. They've got one on the books to raise energy prices—opposing Labor's price caps on gas and coal, which would see power prices rise if their policy was implemented. They voted against those caps.

They have the policy—which members opposite love to advocate—of nuclear power, which is a distraction. It's like the classic smoke grenade. 'Look over here, we'll say something that's manifestly silly.' Renewable energy is the cheapest form of new power, undeniably. That's what economists say, but they can't agree on that, as we saw on Nemesis last night. The climate wars continued through the decade of division, dysfunction and decay under the former government. They say nuclear power as a distraction from the fact that they had 23 energy policies in nine years and couldn't agree on one of them.

They also had a policy to raise taxes on 84 per cent of Australians, and I've got the quotes here. Their brilliant deputy leader, when Labor's tax cuts were announced for all taxpayers, said, 'When the legislation hits the parliament we will fight it all the way. I'm digging in, along with my colleagues and our leader, to fight this really, really hard.' The shadow Treasurer said, 'Of course we're going to try to stop it. A move away from stage 3 tax cuts will not be something we can support.' Senator Matt Canavan said, 'I don't support the government's changed and broken promises on tax.' They're all over the shop. It's hard to know what position they actually hold. They don't want to support Labor's tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners. We'll see what happens when it comes to the vote. But that was their third policy for the term—to raise taxes on 84 per cent of Australians.

Then there's their industrial relations policy for workers that we've heard in the last couple of days. These are real genius! They want Australians to work longer and get paid less. That's their policy. The opposition leader said yesterday that he is going to take a policy to the election, a targeted package, which would repeal the legislation passed by the parliament. They've voted against every single measure that the government's put forward over the last 18 months to get wages moving. They've now confirmed that their targeted package is against wage rises and against job security. They're against safer workplaces and against closing the gender pay gap.

Even the police union came out today, objecting to the opposition leader's policy of removing the right to disconnect—the law that was passed only yesterday to stop unpaid overtime for workers, through a right to disconnect from unreasonable contact out of work hours. The police union said that this would hurt rank-and-file police and that it was an 'ill-conceived thought bubble'.

Those are their four genius policies: raise energy prices, raise energy prices again, raise taxes on 84 per cent of Australians, and cut wages and workplace conditions.

But we are discussing public affairs, and anyone who watched the Nemesis program last night or has over the last couple of weeks would still be in shock. They'll be in shock for weeks, months and probably years over the record of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government. They literally hated each other. The quotes speak for themselves. These are quotes from the television. They're not made-up quotes. They were their own members going on the television talking about each other. To Malcolm Turnbull: 'If I said the name Peter Dutton, what one word springs into your mind?' Malcolm Turnbull: 'Thug.' Senator Reynolds—who's still here; she's still a senator in your party room—said:

There were people who overtly supported Peter Dutton and were taking the petition around and people were blackmailed, they were threatened, they were intimidated to sign the petition. It was appalling.

We've got Barnaby Joyce, the member for New England, saying, 'I think I definitely lied to him because it wasn't his right to know. How many other people in this building are you asking about their personal life?' That was the relationship between the then Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister: very functional!

Christopher Pyne, the former Leader of the House and defence minister said: 'It did surprise me that the plotters had set up in a room next to one of Malcolm Turnbull's chief supporters, which was me.' They could hear bits and pieces from them—'hooting and hollering and laughing and cursing about this person or that person'.

Senator Birmingham, who is still your Senate leader—he's not some has-been; he hasn't left. He's your Senate leader, in the top four in your party. He said:

Looking back, I can see that the absence of women—other than Julie—in the cabinet at the time, and the commentary around that was a symptom of the problems that were to come to dog us more fundamentally in an electoral sense—

which is all, ultimately, they cared about—

in years to come, and to this very day.

We've got Senator McKenzie, who, I think, is one of the deputy leaders or she's leader of the National Party in the Senate or something. She's still in your frontbench. She said that, while that internal war was going on, 'it was like being strapped to a suicide bomber'; 'something horrific and catastrophic was going to happen'.

But I'll bring home the quotes with former member for Bennelong John Alexander, who said: 'In looking at the nine years in power and our three prime ministers, the playing of politics was always the No. 1 game, the No. 2 game and the No. 3 game. It's not productive and it's not edifying.' He was right. They literally hated each other.

But the Liberal horror show actually wasn't the worst thing. It wasn't what they said; it was what wasn't said and what wasn't done. I'll close with these three take-outs. There was no focus on policy. There was hour after hour talking about themselves and hating on each other. There was no focus on the Australian people. As John Alexander said, it was all about the playing of politics.

The second take-out was that Australia's former top public servant—I've never seen anything like this. I was a senior public servant in Victoria. I'm a fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia. I never talk about what happened in Liberal governments that I served and in Labor governments that I served. That ethic stays with you. That the former top public servant in Australia felt compelled to say that the former Prime Minister, the member for Cook, Scott Morrison, never valued women's perspectives was just jaw dropping. That's something that should seriously be reflected on by those opposite. You can see it when you look across their front bench in question time. You're there, Member for Capricornia, and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition is there, and there's a sea of men. It says everything. Nothing has changed.

The final point is that they're all still here. The only thing worse than the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government is those who are left behind. This isn't a new team. We've got Littleproud, Joyce, Hastie and Pitt over there.

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