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

Mark Twain once said, 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.' Mark Twain wasn't saying we shouldn't look at statistics, of course, but, in a typically beautiful turn of phrase, what Mark Twain was arguing against was the use of statistics without understanding, without interpretation and without context. I think that, if Mark Twain had heard this debate today, he would have said, 'I've heard a lot of statistics from one side of this debate, but a lot of those statistics haven't been given the proper context.'

Let me give you just one example. One of the statistics raised in the first speech of this debate was that the $1-an-hour increase in the minimum wage would be worth less than a dollar now; it would be something more than 80c. We all understand the way that inflation works over time in terms of purchasing power, and I haven't gone and double-checked those statistics, but let's take that at face value. But, of course, what that statistic doesn't tell us is that that $1-an-hour increase in the minimum wage was stridently opposed by that same person. So, of course, we get this partial statistic, but it's almost meaningless without the full context. When that $1-an-hour increase in the minimum wage was put forward by those on this side, and in particular by the Prime Minister when he was opposition leader, those opposite described it as reckless and said that it would ruin the economy and that the Prime Minister was, in the words of Scott Morrison, a 'loose unit' for supporting an increase in the minimum wage. The abuse kept coming and coming, but now the shadow Treasurer wishes to complain because that dollar isn't worth exactly a dollar now, without conceding the fact that, if he were in charge, that dollar would have been 0c, not something a bit more than 80c. That's a classic case of a statistic that means something totally different when you look at it in the full context.

Similarly, those opposite relentlessly complain about where wages are at. Real wages now increasing, and those opposite will constantly say, 'But not by much.' But, then, when it comes to each individual case of wage rises, when it comes to every single case before the commission, when it comes to the 15 per cent increase for aged-care workers and when it comes to the 10 per cent increase for early educators, which will come about in December, those opposite oppose. So, again, when you look at statistics in context, they mean something totally different.

Those opposite complain about taxes, but what they don't say is that 87 per cent of the taxpayers in my electorate are better off under the tax plan that we put in as opposed to the one that they wanted to have continued to be legislated. If you look at a household earning $45,000 in my electorate—and there are many in my electorate and, indeed, many in the electorates of people right across this chamber—they are $804 better off because of the tax changes that we put through and that those opposite complained about bitterly all the way through the debate in this chamber. So those opposites will say to a household earning $45,000, 'You're paying too much tax,' but what they won't say is, 'But we would have had you paying $804 more tax.' Similarly, somebody earning $73,000 received a tax cut of $1,504 compared to $800 under them. Again, those opposite will say: 'We think you're paying too much tax. Income tax is too high.' What they don't say is the next part of that sentence—'But we would have had you paying an extra $700.' This is another case of those opposite cherry-picking their statistics or giving a statistic without its real meaning.

What's probably worse is when those opposite go on and on about wasteful spending. They say that there's hundreds of billions of dollars of wasteful spending. Here is where there is a real intellectual dishonesty that is going to be found out at the election. When they say there's hundreds of billions of dollars of wasteful spending and they're asked, 'Are you going to cut payments for veterans, are you going to cut the pension or are you going to cut basic government services?' they obfuscate. They never answer the question. When we get to the election in the first half of next year, those opposite will have to answer at some point. That's when statistics will become reality. They will have to give the full answer, and that's where their hollow rhetoric will become all it is.

See this speech in context