Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Speaker has received a letter from the honourable member for North Sydney proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The failure of the Government’s stimulus packages to protect Australian jobs

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am a tad disappointed today that the Treasurer sent a boy in to do a man’s job. I am quite sad that the Treasurer chooses to debate me on a TV program but not in this place, the house of the people. One of the reasons that it must be a little bit embarrassing for the Treasurer is that when he stated, just before Christmas, that he was in the business of creating jobs by spending money, I thought to myself at the time, ‘This man has form.’ It has been only in the last few days that I have had the opportunity to read the Treasurer’s speech in 2004, when he was the new shadow Treasurer, and he said:

We’ve had a wonderful run of prosperity. Average incomes are up half as much again. Household wealth has doubled. We’ve created two million jobs in the last fourteen years.

So not only is the Treasurer claiming that he is going to create 75,000 jobs; he is trying to claim credit for the two million jobs created during the 10 years of the Liberal-National government. I say to the Treasurer that his hide is no smaller than and no more sensitive than that of a rhinoceros. The Treasurer’s hide is like that of a rhinoceros. He claims to have created 75,000 jobs out of a $10 billion spend before Christmas. Ironically, the Prime Minister got himself befuddled in question time today. He claimed that that money had helped to stimulate retail sales, unlike in the United Kingdom, where, he claimed, retail sales had fallen. Little did he know that, in fact, retail sales in the United Kingdom had risen—and they did not have to have a ₤10 billion cash splash immediately before Christmas.

I want to take this opportunity to lay down the foundations for the narrative of the Rudd government’s economic mismanagement of Australia. I want to go to the starting point, which is the legacy that was left by the previous coalition government. The coalition government left the Rudd Labor government with a record of real job creation. Two million new jobs were created in Australia between 1996 and 2007. The Prime Minister calls us neoliberals. Well, if creating two million new jobs in Australia is the work of a neoliberal then I plead guilty to being a neoliberal. If increasing the real wages of Australian workers by more than 22 per cent over 11 years is the work of a neoliberal then we are all neoliberals. The real wages of Australians have increased under the coalition government, yet they seem to be perilously close to decreasing under a modern Labor government.

Of course, the Labor government has form in government. It was the Hawke-Keating government that took great pride in deliberately reducing the real wages of Australian workers. When we come to the budget, the inheritance received by the Rudd Labor government was a budget that was in a strong, sustainable surplus. Even when it was identified by the then Treasurer, the member for Higgins, in the Intergenerational Reports that Australia was facing structural deficits into the future, the coalition government took the hard decisions to put in place the basis for ongoing surplus budgets. And what happened? Labor came into government, and when Labor comes into government they cannot help themselves; they are very good spenders.

Why do I say that? There is no better evidence of the capacity of the Labor Party to spend than in the last few months. Since the last budget, the first Labor budget, the Rudd Labor government has committed to $80 billion of new spending above the budget. They say that that is necessary to address the global financial crisis. But you cannot look at the extraordinary fiscal stimulus package in Australia in isolation. You need to look at two other factors. The first factor is the foundations upon which that stimulus package was necessary. When you compare Australia with the United Kingdom and the United States and every other OECD country, you can identify that the foundations upon which Australia has entered into difficult economic times have been far better than those inherited by every other country

In a recent report, the assistant governor of the Reserve Bank identified that a comparison of the discretionary fiscal easing in certain countries illustrated that Australia was at the higher end—meaning that the Rudd government spent more by comparison with other countries in greater financial distress. Discretionary fiscal easing in the United States was over two per cent of GDP, in the United Kingdom it was over one per cent, in Germany it was 1½ per cent, in Japan it was 1½ per cent, in China it was over two per cent, in South Korea it was over two per cent, in Taiwan it was over two per cent and in Australia it was over 2½ per cent. So the Rudd Labor government has spent more than most other comparable countries at a time when Australia’s foundations are better than any of those other countries.

On top of that, at the same time you cannot ignore the relationship between a fiscal stimulus and a monetary stimulus. The easing of monetary policy by the Reserve Bank is at extraordinary levels, even by the admission of the Governor of the Reserve Bank before the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics last week. The significant easing in monetary policy by the Reserve Bank had to work in partnership with a fiscal stimulus. There has been a four per cent drop in interest rates in Australia—from 7¼ per cent to 3¼ per cent today—and they still have the capacity to go down further. But even the Reserve is now sending a message that it is time to wait and see. The significant easing in monetary policy, combined with the massive fiscal stimulus by this mob over the last three months, means that Australia has gone faster and further than any other comparable country. I say this to the government and to the Treasurer: you would want to hope that this is a 100-metre sprint because, if it is a marathon—and every economic indicator is saying that it will be—there will not be any fuel left in the tank when it is most needed. That is my concern and that is the concern of the coalition.

Let me take you back, Madam Deputy Speaker, to the election of the Rudd government. The Rudd government’s immediate task was to try and rubbish the economic inheritance that bequeathed to them a very strong economy with strong economic growth, very low unemployment, a significant budget surplus and no government debt. In fact, we left money in the kitty. More than $60 billion was left in the kitty. So the government was not only free of debt but actually had significant net assets.

How that changed. The first thing the Prime Minister did was declare the first of many wars. We had wars on obesity; we had wars on binge drinking; we had wars on pokies—we have had wars on everything—and we had a war on inflation. The war on inflation that the Prime Minister declared was the war that actually cost Australians significant amounts of money because that was effectively egging on the Reserve Bank to increase interest rates. I have taken the opportunity to have a look at the statements of the Reserve Bank on 7 November 2007, 5 December 2007, 5 February 2008 and 4 March 2008. On all occasions the Reserve Bank put the words of concern about inflation ahead of the concern about the looming global financial crisis, and this is even after it became perfectly obvious that the global financial crisis emerging in United States credit markets—in fact in global credit markets—would have a profound effect here.

By egging on the Reserve Bank, by declaring a war on inflation, the Labor Party deliberately slowed the Australian economy at exactly the wrong time. At a time when everyone else in the world was running away from the beach because there had been an earthquake out to sea, Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan were deliberately encouraging people to run down to the beach to observe the looming tidal wave.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member will use the appropriate title for people.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, that was exactly the wrong medicine for the Australian economy. Not only were they talking about slowing the Australia economy; the measures they introduced in their own budget were inflationary. They increased taxes on the car industry. Look at the car industry today. It was the government of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer that deliberately took a baseball bat to the car industry in the May budget at exactly the wrong time.

They had another initiative that was clearly inflationary: changing the private health insurance rebate. Of course it was going to be inflationary. What was the impact? We are yet to see just how far premiums will increase, but have no doubt they will increase way beyond the existing inflation rate. Then there was the alcopops initiative. That was all about raising revenue, all about raising prices and all about raising inflation. Yet they claimed their budget would be anti-inflationary—that it would put downward pressure on inflation. The contradictory messages coming out of the Labor government caused confusion and distress in the Australian economy and caused confusion and distress for Australian consumers. That is the net impact when you do not have economic leadership based on sound fundamental principles—when you not do not have economic leadership that is based on hope and confidence and when you do not have economic leadership that is responsible and measured—but rather befuddled economic speeches, statements and moments from the Treasurer. They talked about the inflation genie being out of the bottle. They said, ‘This is bad, really bad.’

We heard those horrific statements in October last year. If there were any confidence left in the Australian economy amongst small business and amongst consumers, the Prime Minister sapped it all—he took it out; he vacuumed up any confidence left in the Australian economy with his overblown rhetoric and his continuing war footing on the economy. Of course he made inappropriate responses. He went too far on the government guarantee. He went too far in a range of measures, including the $10 billion stimulus package. We supported him at that time because we believed him to have evidence that would justify such an extraordinary measure. Over time we have discovered that, no, he did not have any evidence but in fact he was focused on other things—political things. We now know that the recent $42 billion package has in part been focused on the Queensland election so that the cheques can be received by Queensland householders during the course of the election campaign. That is just a coincidence—there is no relationship!

We must ask ourselves: where to now? I can say that the biggest losers from the Rudd Labor government are going to be the workers of Australia. The workers of Australia previously enjoyed low unemployment. The workers of Australia previously enjoyed high real wages. The workers of Australia previously had job security. Every initiative of the Rudd government to date has been more focused on politics than it has been on the economics of the nation. Everything they have said and done has focused on the next vote rather than what is right. There are costs in that—the great bill that is going to come out of that political equation and that political question will be paid by the next generation of Australians.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The more things change, the more they stay the same. You can change the organ-grinder but the same old tunes keep beltin’ on out—it is the same old approach from the opposition. The telling moment, the final straw that broke the camel’s back for the former shadow Treasurer—

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is this your job application?

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, member for Mayo! Is this your job application to get chucked out? I would be careful.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The straw that broke the camel’s back for the former shadow Treasurer, the member for Curtin, was when she said that the Liberal Party’s approach to economic management at this time of global financial crisis was to wait and see. That was it. That was the final gaffe. That was the bridge too far that drove her colleagues to say, ‘It’s time to go. You’re fired.’ And what do we see from the new shadow Treasurer? The same approach. We heard it just then. They were different words. Sometimes he even says ‘wait and see’—or a more fancy way of saying wait and see sometimes. We see the same bankrupt approach from the opposition. On Sunday we saw the new shadow Treasurer on Insiders say that the government’s stimulus package was too big and badly targeted. He said:

But you see when you spend all the money that is available, when you reduce the amount of petrol you have in the fuel tank you never know what's going to come around the corner and you might not be able to cope with it.

That is a fancy way of saying, ‘You’re doing too much to support jobs in Australia.’ It is a fancy way of saying, ‘It’d be better to wait and see.’

When you look at the performance so far of the new shadow Treasurer and you consider that he was the second choice for the job, and when you consider that he is the fourth person to be the spokesman on economic matters for the Liberal Party in the last 18 months, you might think that, if Andy Warhol were looking at the Liberal Party, he would say, ‘Everybody gets their 15 minutes as shadow Treasurer in the Liberal Party,’ because that is what we see—this revolving door of spokespeople but the same old message, the same old tunes.

The opposition says—and we heard it again—that the December stimulus package was a waste of money. They say it was a cash splash, a sugar hit. By the way, that was the package that they supported. Remember that? Remember the Leader of the Opposition saying, ‘We won’t be quibbling with this package; it has our support’? Now they say that it was a waste of money. We had the Leader of the National Party saying in the other house that it would be spent against a wall, insulting Australia’s pensioners and low- and middle-income families, saying that they would not know how to spend the money, that it would be a waste of money.

The package was all about jobs—supporting Australian jobs. That is what it comes down to at the end of the day—supporting Australian jobs in an environment where seven out of our 10 largest trading partners are now in recession; where the United States has shed half a million jobs a month in the last three months; where in the United States retail sales fell around three per cent for the month of December; where in Japan sales fell by two per cent in December; and where in Germany and New Zealand sales fell by around one per cent. In Australia, sales increased by 3.8 per cent in December. Can you imagine the furore from the opposition if sales had fallen in December, if we had not had a stimulus package? Can you imagine the outcry—the correct outcry—that would come if they were able to say, ‘The Australian government has not done enough to support Australian jobs’? In Australia, retail sales grew in December by the highest amount in eight years. In fact, it was the fourth highest amount we have seen since that statistical series began—the fourth highest amount in the history of that statistical series.

But it is not just about retail sales. We see the efforts of the government to put a floor under confidence in the construction industry—to boost confidence in the construction industry—and we have seen a 15 per cent increase in loans to purchase new dwellings in Australia as a result of the increase in the first home owner grant, as a result of the government’s stimulus package. But these things are not an end in themselves. Of course, they are not; they are a means to an end. They are a means to support Australian jobs.

The House had to put up with the indignity of having to listen to the shadow Treasurer, the former minister for workplace relations, talking about protections for Australian workers, the indignity of being lectured by the man who said, ‘The cabinet did not realise how much pain Work Choices was causing the Australian people,’ and the indignity of having to listen to the member for North Sydney say that job security was better under Work Choices than it is now. Well, the Australian people have seen through that argument.

But the House does not need to take the government’s word for it when it comes to the effect of the government’s stimulus packages on Australian jobs. The House does not need to take my word for it or the government’s word for it. Just look at what the experts say. Dr Gruen, executive director of the macroeconomic unit in Treasury said:

... we have evidence that the package stimulated consumption. We have strong reason to believe that that would have led to more people being employed than would otherwise have been the case.

The shadow Treasurer quoted the Governor of the Reserve Bank, but, sadly, I have to report to the House that he left quite a few out. He left this one out:

Growth will be stronger than it would have been without those actions. I do not think there is any doubt about that.

That is what the governor said about the government’s actions. Sara Hoenig, the economist with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, said:

If there were any doubts about the efficacy of the government’s fiscal stimulus packages and Australian consumers’ willingness to spend, the December retail sales report is a clear rebuttal.

The same goes for the government’s second stimulus package. David de Garis, an economist from the National Australia Bank, said it was:

A sizeable fiscal stimulus and, I think, appropriate in the circumstances both in terms of the size of the stimulus and also its construction.

Those well-known socialists down at the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said:

Such is the scope of our current economic difficulties that this package, combined with monetary easing, is absolutely essential. The size of the package at 2% of GDP in 2009 is appropriate and in line with our estimate of what is required.

And, again, we come to the Governor of the Reserve Bank, who said that he was comfortable with the government’s approach.

The Governor of the Reserve Bank specifically rebutted the narrative of the shadow Treasurer, who argues that we are spending too much now. The Governor of the Reserve Bank pointed out that, if you do not act quickly enough, if you do not stimulate the economy at the right time, if you leave it too late, you will be creating bigger deficits and more debt down the line. The shadow Treasurer’s narrative then is an argument for more unemployment and more debt—because, if you do not stimulate the economy, you will see unemployment go up, you will see profits go down, you will see tax revenue go down and you will see deficits and debt go up. The Governor of the Reserve Bank is not the only person who has pointed that out. Saul Eslake has said:

... history ... suggests that the ultimate fiscal cost of episodes such as the present one ends up being considerably greater if appropriate ameliorative action is delayed.

So we have the shadow Treasurer and the former shadow Treasurer singing from the same song book, but a tune completely out of touch with what is going on—a song out of tune with the economic reality in Australia and around the globe; a song out of tune with every economic expert in this country; a song out of tune with the Governor of the Reserve Bank. The shadow Treasurer is singing from the same song book as the former shadow Treasurer. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Let us look at the composition of the packages. We have dealt with the quantum of the packages, but let us look at how the government’s stimulus packages have been constructed. We have taken the view that, as well as stimulating the economy, these packages provide an opportunity to invest for the future. These packages are an opportunity to invest in Australia’s children. Seventy per cent of the government’s second stimulus package is by way of direct investment. That compares with around 30 per cent for the stimulus package in the United States. So there is 70 per cent by way of direct investment in the future. There are areas where this can be spent quickly but they are areas that have been underfunded for so long—for example, level crossings in areas of high accidents. We all hear about level-crossing accidents, and we all hear the cries from the community: ‘Why can’t we have more boom gates?’ For years, governments have said, ‘We can’t afford it.’ We are taking this opportunity to make a step towards improved and safe level crossings.

Our most important investment is in our schools and in education. What does the opposition say about that part of our stimulus package? The shadow Treasurer said:

Well let me tell you, we wouldn’t be spending $14 billion on school halls. I mean that is a phenomenal amount of money. $14 billion … That is just ridiculous.

Let me respectfully point out a few things to the member for North Sydney. Firstly, school halls are no longer just about school assemblies. Any honourable member who goes to the schools in their electorate knows that those schools with school halls have learning areas, performance areas, or exercise areas in their school halls. They are an important part of the school community. They are not just about assemblies. And every principal will tell you that their school is poorer without them.

But the other thing I would point out to the member for North Sydney is that he either completely misunderstands, or completely misrepresents, the government’s investment in schools—because it is not just about school halls. There is a little thing that I might introduce the member for North Sydney to. It is called a school library. It is quite important. It is about giving the kids a chance to learn in the best possible environment. It is about investing in schools with second-rate or third-rate libraries and giving them a first-rate library that they deserve. It is also about science labs and language labs. It is about those primary schools that already have a good school hall and a good library being able to get rid of demountables and rebuild their classrooms. That is what this investment in schools is about.

I say to the member for North Sydney in all seriousness and with respect: perhaps schools in the North Sydney electorate are not too badly off. Maybe they are doing okay. Maybe he thinks they do not need this investment. I think he is probably wrong but maybe he thinks that. But come out to the rest of Australia, come out to the electorates in rural Australia that the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry goes to and sees. Come out to the electorates in Western Sydney and western Melbourne and the western suburbs of Brisbane. Come out and see whether the school principals in those areas say, ‘We don’t need this money,’ and ‘This amount of money is ridiculous.’ See if they think that this is a ridiculous investment in Australia’s future. I think the member for North Sydney might be the one who will be educated. I think the member for North Sydney might get a wake-up call. I think the member for North Sydney, the shadow Treasurer, might realise that he is the one being ridiculous and that this is not a ridiculous investment, it is an appropriate investment. I think the member for North Sydney needs to be reminded that it is not just investment in hard infrastructure in roads and in rail that creates wealth, but that investment in our kids creates wealth. Investment in our schools creates wealth—and not just now and not just tomorrow. It does not just stimulate the economy now; it stimulates it for years to come. It is the member for North Sydney who needs to be educated about that. It is the shadow Treasurer who needs reminding that the Australian government is determined to invest appropriately in our schools, and that we do not think it is ridiculous.

We then have the opposition saying, ‘We want tax cuts. We do not agree with all this money being handed out. We want tax cuts.’ We do not know what sort of tax cuts they want. The Leader of the Opposition has said that we should bring forward the tax cuts that are due to be paid later in the year and the year after. The former shadow Treasurer argued for ‘broad and sweeping tax cuts that will increase the tax base and increase tax revenues’. I would invite the new shadow Treasurer to disassociate himself from those comments while he has the opportunity. The shadow Treasurer might want to point out that he does not believe that tax cuts actually increase government revenue. I have heard some of the opposition say, ‘We want tax cuts like those in President Obama’s stimulus package.’ But the tax cuts in the United States stimulus package are temporary rebates. They are not dissimilar to the payments in the Australian government’s tax package. So we find the opposition hopelessly at sea under the member for Curtin and equally at sea under the member for North Sydney.

What the Australian people are looking for is leadership. They are not looking for a government that says, ‘We will wait and see.’ They are not looking for a government that says, ‘We will wait until the economy is as bad as Britain or the United States or anywhere else before we act.’ They are not looking for a government which says, ‘We will observe the patient in intensive care before we administer first aid.’ They are not looking for a government which says, ‘We don’t believe that important and urgent action is needed now to protect and support Australian jobs while people are still in employment and before it is too late.’ They are looking for a government that acts. The opposition simply sings the same old tune—too much, too soon. We say it cannot be soon enough.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today the opposition raises a matter of the highest public importance—jobs, jobs, jobs. The jobs in question are not those of the members opposite; they are the jobs of those in struggling families. They are the jobs of people who were once part of working families. They have lost that job, and their families are now struggling. They are people who do not know when their next work opportunity is going to come. And how much worse is this going to be in the weeks, months and years ahead? Clearly, the government has no idea. Their incredible mismanagement of the economy has turned around a once booming economy—the star in the economic sceptre of the world. An economy admired across the globe has been turned around so that we are now in deficit, in debt and have little hope of an early recovery.

Like you, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, I am a proud Queenslander, but I am sorry to say that there are a group of Queenslanders who have been letting the side down lately. They are a gang of four: the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd; his Treasurer, Wayne Swan; the Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh; and her Treasurer, Andrew Fraser. It seems they have conspired to drive Queensland into a recession and take the nation to record debt. They grew up in the state as I did, and we were always proud of a state that had a balanced budget. We were proud of the fact that the state’s public service had its superannuation fully funded when other governments did not. We were proud of our low taxes and strong growth. We were proud of what our state was achieving.

At a national level, too, there has been a contribution towards building a strong national economy. Queensland is one of the resource-rich states and has led much of the growth in our nation. It contributed very significantly to the $60 billion surplus that was available when Labor came to office in Canberra. Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan, our fellow Queenslanders, have squandered it all. Only a couple of weeks ago they wanted a $200 billion limit on their credit card to go out and spend more and more. The emphasis of this government is on debt and spending. They have no idea about management and how to restore the nation’s economy.

The Queensland state deficit has exploded to $1.6 billion this year. It went from a surplus to a $1.6 billion deficit in the space of just a few weeks. How humiliating it should have been for the Treasurer to have to confess to the people of Queensland that he had blown the promised surplus in the budget and was now delivering a $1.6 billion debt. And the world noticed. Queensland’s AAA credit rating has been junked and the state now faces interest bills about $400 million per year higher because that AAA credit rating has been lost—the proud record of balanced budgets all now nothing. The world financial markets have looked at Queensland, its $70 billion debt and the incompetence of the management of the state government and come to the conclusion that this economy is not worth a AAA rating. In spite of all the coal, the gold, the mineral wealth, the agricultural wealth, the tourism industry—all the wonderful things that Queensland has to offer—it is not worth a AAA credit rating. I note that even Morris Iemma in New South Wales was not able to destroy his state’s credit rating. It might not be far away, but even he could not achieve what has been delivered by Premier Anna Bligh.

The state has a hospital system that vies with that of New South Wales for the title ‘worst in the Western world’. It has clogged road systems; a highly populated south-east area without services and facilities; overcrowded and unpainted classrooms; and political scandals, with recently retired ministers in front of the courts on corruption charges. This is the government that has taken Queensland out of the boom and into the gloom. Queensland boasted about the minerals boom and population growth but did nothing about providing the services that were necessary. As the Australian’s Mike Steketee said today, Labor’s state election campaign began yesterday with Ms Bligh saying that only she ‘has the experience and ability to steer Queensland through the tough times ahead’. He notes:

She forgot to mention that it was this ability that lost the state its AAA credit rating.

Of course, Labor has form in losing credit ratings. Remember that when Paul Keating was Prime Minister of Australia—the last Labor Prime Minister—our credit rating was slashed twice. Labor was incompetent and unable to manage the federal economy then; it is clear the current government is no better. How long will it be before Australia loses its AAA credit rating? How long can we keep filling up the Bankcard and keep our national credit rating at AAA? It is time the Treasurer levelled with the Australian people and made clear to us how long Australia can enjoy its high standing when it comes to borrowing around the world.

The Australian also said:

Voters will see through her—

Ms Bligh’s—

second excuse, too, and realise that Labor is rushing to an election before things get much worse. The party’s pollsters will have told Bligh that the angry mood of late last year, when Bligh copped a hammering in Newspoll, has dissipated with the help of falling interest rates and lower petrol prices. Once unemployment soars, it will be a different story.

She knows that when it soars in Queensland, as it is soaring in other parts of Australia, it will be a different story.

Here we have it: instead of a plan we have a panicked rush to an early state election; instead of sound economic management we have waste and lost opportunities; instead of honesty we have more and more spin. Queensland used to be the last state into recession. It now seems it will be amongst the first. We are likely to see Queensland not only in a recession but with no plan and no capacity to find its way through it. The state is lumbered with a huge debt, and that as well is going to lie on the backs of tomorrow’s workers as they pay higher taxes. Queensland will inevitably lose its reputation as a low-tax state as the workers pay more and more taxes to pay off the debt of the Bligh and Beattie governments. Of course, there will be less money in Queensland—as there will be less money in Australia—to pay for health, education, defence and vital services because the taxpayers of tomorrow, the families of tomorrow, will be paying higher taxes every year to pay for the spending sprees that are occurring at present—the spending sprees that buy a moment of sunshine and will have to be paid back in the future.

Our Prime Minister and our Treasurer inherited from the previous government an economy that was the envy of the world, an unemployment rate trying its best to get below four per cent and a budget surplus of $20 billion, which the Prime Minister has shamefully tried to claim as his own. The $20 billion surplus and the $60 billion of accumulated funds set aside for the future by the coalition have been turned into a projected $118 billion budget deficit by 2012. That is the fault of those who sit opposite. The unemployment rate is already up to 4.8 per cent and is likely to hit six per cent by Christmas.

What have we had? Two stimulus packages now. The first one, of about $10 billion, was going to create 70,000 jobs, but in question time today it was confirmed yet again that no-one opposite can identify a single job that this scheme has created. We now come to the $42 billion package, which is not going to create even a single job. The Treasurer and the government have not even claimed that it will create a single job. All it is going to do is sustain 90,000 jobs. Divide that number into $42 billion and it is pretty close to half a million dollars per job—a pretty expensive sustaining process.

The reality is that, instead of the packages actually creating and sustaining jobs, unemployment is going up. There are more people out of work. The stimulus packages are creating more unemployment, not more jobs. So far, Labor has promised to create 330,000 jobs through their various stimulus packages, but in fact unemployment has gone up by over 300,000. The unemployment figure has gone up by more than the number of jobs the government claims it is going to create. Contrast that with the two million jobs created by the previous government and you get a measure of the difference between good economic management and the rubbish that this Labor government is already pushing on the people. (Time expired)

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is an old adage in this place: the louder the bark the less you usually have to say. We have just seen two very good examples of it, one from the LNP member across the chamber, who did not actually refer to or speak to this MPI but, with rank opportunism, attacked the Queensland state government because there is an election on. How about actually dealing with the issues at hand right here in the Commonwealth, the issues that are affecting everybody in Australia, not just those in Queensland?

What a load of confused rhetoric we got from the former minister for cutting workers conditions and stripping away their rights. I have to say that the new shadow minister for the Treasury portfolio, the member for North Sydney, does put on a good show. There is no question of that. We all have a good laugh; he is a bit of an entertainer. But the sad part of his performance is that it comes at the cost of jobs. I do want to congratulate the member for North Sydney on his appointment to the shadow Treasury portfolio. I say to the member: give it your best shot, because the points of difference between the government and the opposition could not be any greater or any better differentiated.

While I am on the subject of the shadow Treasury portfolio, I want to wish him luck, because it has already claimed two scalps—the scalps of Julie Bishop and Peter Costello. They are both victims of the shadow Treasury portfolio. The member has a larger-than-life reputation, but he will need more than just huff and puff in coming into this place if he wants to provide a positive alternative or support the decisive action of the government on the impacts of the global financial crisis on the Australian economy and more importantly on people, on families and on jobs.

With that in mind, can I say how disappointed I am at this MPI. This MPI is an attack on our economy, it is an attack on families and it is an attack on jobs. I do understand the need that the opposition has to simply oppose, but it should do so in a constructive manner and in a manner that does not actually make matters worse. While in government, the mob on the other side were feverishly working up arguments, saying that we talk the economy down. I do not agree that that was the case, because I do not believe we talked the economy down once. The very first thing they did when they got into opposition was do everything in their power to talk the economy down. While the Rudd government is out there feverishly working to sustain Australian jobs and help families, the opposition just wants to play games. We just saw evidence of it, with one of the LNP members deciding that he would have a go and attack the Queensland state government and not actually address the MPI put up by his own side.

While the government offers up its second stimulus package, its second round of supporting and creating jobs and helping families to dampen the full impact of the global financial crisis, the opposition just carps and whines. While the government does everything it can to help families, schools and business, the opposition is busy arguing with itself on leadership, portfolios and self-interest. Nothing could have been made more clear in the policy approach to Australia’s and the world’s single biggest and greatest downturn in history than the comments of the former shadow Treasurer, Julie Bishop. She was asked on radio what the opposition would do, what was going to be their policy. If they were in government today, what would they be doing? Were they just going to whine and carp and complain and whinge? What was their alternative? Her answer was very simple. She said they would sit and wait and see what happens. None of us can afford that—not one of us in this place and not one of us in Australia. In other words, what she was saying is that they would sit and wait for jobs to go, for business to fail, for families to lose their homes, for schools to struggle and for the Australian economy to falter like the rest of the world is faltering. This position was simply not good enough for anybody in this place or anywhere else.

Although the former Treasurer was in the end removed from her role because of her views and her failure in this very technical, very difficult portfolio area, she was professing the views of her leader. Her views are the views of the Leader of the Opposition. She was not acting alone in her comments. She was acting in concert with and with the support of the Leader of the Opposition. She paid the price but it is the Leader of the Opposition that continues the mantra of ‘just sit and wait’, because at every opportunity the opposition does everything it can to destroy the stimulus packages that the government are putting up. No clearer evidence of that is available than the sheer fact that they all voted against the package. They voted against the $42 billion. They did not want the money. They did not want it in their schools; they did not want it anywhere else.

I started by saying that there was a massive differentiation between the government and the opposition. There could not be a bigger difference between what we want to do in Australia’s national interest and what the opposition want to do in their own self-interest. The greatest difference between the government and the opposition is simple. It is that we have a strategy and we will work hard to deliver that, and the opposition just have an excuse.

This MPI is as spurious as it is disingenuous. The whole point of the stimulus package in the first place is to protect and create jobs. You will hear all sorts of numbers about where the jobs are being created. Yet every speaker on the government side explains exactly where those jobs are. They are being created in schools through construction; they are being created in industry, where money is being invested; they are being created in small, medium and large businesses; they are being created in industry, in innovation and in clean technologies; and they are being created in retail. They have been created right across the board. The opposition come in here carping on, repeating the same mantra over and over and over: ‘Where are the jobs being created?’ You have your answer: they are being created right here, right now in the Australian economy, not somewhere else but right here in every community—in large communities, in small communities. In every community where there exists a school there are jobs being created right now.

If the opposition do not believe us, they can ring up a school principal and ask them what they think about the package. If they do not believe the government, I ask every member in the opposition to ring up a builder that they know and ask where their next job is coming from and if the government stimulus package is not helping—if the public housing policy we have got and the creation of 20,000 new homes over the next two years is not helping. I can tell you what they are telling me in my electorate, and I know what they are telling government members in other electorates. I know what those very same people would be telling members of the opposition in their own electorates: ‘Get out of the road, do something positive for the country and help the economy.’

But all we hear from the other side is doom and gloom and rank political opportunism. We get LNP members in here who have no mandate whatsoever, and if their numbers purely as reflected in Queensland determined the sort of mandate they would have in this place they would barely register a hiccup on the Richter scale. Self-interest can often cloud the mind on what is right and what is wrong, what needs to be done and what needs the goodwill of all Australians—even for politicians. But it is regrettably clear that the opposition has lost direction and has lost focus on the national interest in favour of self-interest. If the opposition cannot understand or will not support measures the government is putting in place to sustain or create jobs, it just proves how out of touch they really are and how out of touch the Leader of the Opposition is with ordinary people and the economy. I suppose it is a case of ‘once a merchant banker, always a merchant banker’.

For the rest of us here, there is much work to be done: to fix and build infrastructure; to build schools and invest in children’s education; to invest in public housing; to invest in the construction industry and build new homes, including through first home owners grants; to invest in older Australians and families; to support innovation and invest in our universities; to invest in green and clean technologies; and to support training, job creation and new training for the job opportunities that are coming in the future and are needed now. We are reducing red tape and bureaucracy, to support small business and other measures through the tax system. We are supporting industry through increased grants to create more jobs. We are supporting the real estate sector through incentives to families and, while there are almost too many to list here today in the few minutes that I have got, the government is working very hard to at least protect families and workers against the very worst effects of the global financial crisis.

The shadow Treasurer stumps up to the pulpit in this place and preaches doom and gloom, loud and full of huff and puff, but in the end says nothing at all. When the opposition talks about the ‘cash splash’, what are they talking about? Are they saying that we wasted the $10 billion on ordinary families and pensioners? Is that what you are saying—that we wasted it on pensioners? When the opposition talks about the ‘cash splash’—the $42 billion in schools—are we wasting that on children’s education? I think not. (Time expired)

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I have watched over the last few weeks and months as the government has expended billions of dollars of taxpayers’ funds, has blithely turned a $20 billion surplus into a $20 billion deficit and has in the process recklessly run up a $200 billion debt for the people of Australia, I have been reminded of some lines from that musical Evita, about the wife of the Argentinean leader Peron:

When the money keeps rolling in you don’t ask how

Think of all the people guaranteed a good time now

               …            …            …

And the money kept rolling out in all directions.

It captures the government’s program: spend, spend, spend. And, if you do not have the money, we will borrow millions and billions of dollars in order to give it to you so you can go and spend it, and in turn the next generation of Australians can repay the debt and the interest on that debt.

What we have seen in this latest $42 billion package is turning a surplus of over $20 billion into a deficit of over $20 billion. And, on top of that, it is compounded by deficits running into the future and a burgeoning Commonwealth debt to which we can add the debts of each state in Australia—debts being run up by Labor parties in government in those states. This is the greatest debt at a government level that Australians of any generation will have to bear.

Mr Rudd says he is doing this in response to the global financial crisis. He would have some credibility if his past actions indeed led to an outcome which is understandable and believable. But last year the Treasurer, Mr Swan, and Mr Rudd were telling us that inflation was the major problem facing the Australian economy, and they were egging on the Reserve Bank to increase interest rates. We were subsequently to find out that the very time those interest rates were being run up was the very time when the economy indeed was changing.

So we have got this package, which is ostensibly about—we were told—creating jobs for Australians. In December we were told that $10.4 billion would create 75,000 jobs, $4.7 billion in another package would create 32,000 jobs and $15.1 billion in the COAG package would create 133,000 jobs. In the space of a few weeks the Commonwealth government was spending some $30 billion to create, we are told, somewhere in the order of a quarter of a million jobs, and yet the latest unemployment statistics—data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics—show that unemployment in Australia has risen. Not one job.

Yet, more recently, there was another $42 billion which we were told this time is to support—and we have avoided the word ‘create’ now—another 90,000 jobs. We are being told that this money, this $72 billion of taxpayers’ money—they will have to pay it eventually—is being used to create 330,000 Australian jobs. Yet, when asked, the government cannot point to one job that has been created. We know that the hard data from the ABS shows us that unemployment indeed has risen in Australia. That is the situation we are in.

There is a benchmark by which this government will be judged, and that will not be in the assertions that are being made in this debate on the other side of the chamber; it will be in the hard data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. As unemployment rises—which everybody, even the Reserve Bank and the Treasury, concedes it is regrettably going to do—by 300,000 or 400,000, when the unemployment rate goes to over seven per cent, then we can look back on the assertions of this government that it was going to create 330,000 jobs. It is total nonsense. Again, in the words of Evita, we will be left lamenting:

Where do we go from here?

This isn’t where we intended to be.

Sadly, that is the situation that this government is putting Australia into. It will be judged not by its assertions but by its performance, and if its performance is such that unemployment continues to grow in this country then that is what it should be judged by. (Time expired)

Kerry Rea (Bonner, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I certainly want to add my voice to oppose the sentiments expressed in this matter of public interest brought forward by the new shadow Treasurer. What is clear is that what we have heard today simply reinforces something that I have thought for a long time—in fact, for a bit over 12 years—and that is that the coalition just do not get it. They do not get government and they do not understand what an important role government plays in developing and stimulating our economy. They wasted 12 years in government. They created a GST, they sold off the farm, particularly Telstra, and they also governed through one of the most significant revenue booms, the mining boom, that we have seen in this country and at no stage did they actually understand that that revenue was needed to invest in our economy and to build economic security for the future. They never, ever get the point that investment supports communities and builds an economy.

That is why this government has created this very specifically targeted stimulus package. It does a number of things. It supports jobs because it builds infrastructure for those things that we need to build our future sustainability and our communities. It is investing in education, building infrastructure in our schools, which will support jobs in those local communities now and will also provide the skilled workforce that we need for the future. It is building social housing, which again is supporting the very much needed stimulus within our construction industry right now and also providing necessary housing for those who are most vulnerable and those who are homeless in our community. And of course it is also supporting jobs in the insulation industry, which once again not only sees more jobs created in that industry but actually reduces energy consumption in this country and supports our future environmental sustainability.

This is the point that the opposition, when in government and now, have never, ever got. They wasted 12 years of opportunity. We know merchant bankers love the phrase ‘money makes money’. I would like to paraphrase that and argue also that jobs create jobs. What is important is: if you stimulate the economy and provide both very necessary spending and infrastructure packages that create more spending money for people in our community, you support not only those who need that cash injection but some very significant industries within our economy right now—that is, the retail sector and the accommodation and food services sector. We heard the leader of the Liberal-National Party in this place talk about the Queensland economy. Well, in the Queensland economy over 20 per cent of jobs are in the retail, food services and accommodation sectors. In my electorate of Bonner, over 16 per cent of jobs—in fact 11,043 jobs—are in those sectors.

You cannot tell me that by encouraging people to go out there and spend in those sectors we are not supporting jobs and stimulating the economy. In fact, we heard the shadow Treasurer, prior to his promotion, talking about staring into the eyes of children and asking them about future debt. I would like him to stare into the eyes of the 16-year-old kid who loses his casual job at Coles and cannot get a new cricket bat. I want him to tell the university student who can only eat because of their part-time job in a local restaurant that he does not care about that job. I would like him to tell all of those people in the Westfield shopping centres, the small business strips and the major shopping centres that their jobs are not worth it, that they actually do not care. It is usually women, young people and those most marginalised who work in those jobs and that is why the opposition do not care about that sector of the economy. It is very important. The opposition say, ‘Wait and see.’ They say it is a marathon. You cannot win a marathon when you are behind the pack. (Time expired)