Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A few weeks back some unemployment figures came out that were a little bit surprising—certainly not anywhere near as bad as many pundits had predicted. And what did we hear from those opposite? We heard no grudging acknowledgment at all; instead old Hanrahan came out and said, ‘We’ll all be rooned!’ And on the ABC web news today, the first day of winter, there was a headline that read, ‘Retail sales figures edge up’. The article said:

Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) show retail sales crept up by a seasonally-adjusted 0.3 per cent to $19.35 billion in April.

There was another article today in the Brisbane Times which said:

The economy is showing signs of stabilising, with healthy retail and home sales in April and stronger factory orders in May.

According to the article, Moody’s Matt Robinson said:

It suggests Aussie households are in a lot better position than households in other major industrial economies.

Just tonight I heard Alan Kohler say, on the seven o’clock ABC News, that sales are holding. Even the share market is up today—a three-week high. Obviously it is way too early to talk about spring but all the positive signs are there that doing something is working.

What sort of response do all of these tentatively positive economic signs generate from those opposite? They generate nothing but silence. Why is this so? It is so because Malcolm Turnbull’s plan is the wait-and-see plan. Malcolm Turnbull’s plan is the let-her-rip plan—let the market rip and to hell with the consequences: do not worry about the unemployment; do not worry about the consequences of doing nothing; do not worry about the lives and the communities that are destroyed. Such despair is mere collateral damage in the opportunistic war the coalition is waging on responsible government. Those opposite sit there like a big set of vultures at the end of the Australian economy’s sick bed—perched, hovering. Well, I am sorry, scavengers, but there is still a hell of a lot of life in the old girl yet.

The members of the coalition really need to go back and talk to some of the small business people in their electorates. Do they know how to do a street stall? Do they know how to doorknock and talk to the businesses in their electorates? Obviously the wait-and-see policy has failed. I did a big street stall the weekend before last, and a couple of fetes on the weekend. And I did a ring-around last week when I was speaking about the special purpose vehicle legislation. I spoke to quite a few car sales people—I have a big strip of car yards in my electorate—and what did they say? They love what the Rudd government has done. I was speaking to people who have never voted Labor in their lives. I mean that literally—not in that loose Brendan Nelson sort of way.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member will refer to members by their titles.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker. How can the coalition fail to understand what our local community infrastructure program means in terms of jobs? How can they miss that? Don’t they realise that when we invest in the regeneration of schools—and there are schools in every single community—that we are letting tradespeople keep their apprentices on. By doing so, careers are saved and skills crises are avoided. It means that restaurant doors do not have to close, that waiters and chefs keep their jobs and that small business people who went into the hospitality industry—a very difficult industry—are able to keep the roofs over their heads.

Many of the Rudd Labor government investments will bolster our productivity tomorrow. ‘Productivity’—there is a word that those opposite do not seem to understand. Seventy per cent of the investments in the nation building for recovery plan are in roads, rail, ports, broadband, clean energy and other priorities that will stimulate the economy. This means that Australia will recover from the global recession faster than most advanced economies.

The coalition’s let-her-rip policy has failed. Their dole queue schadenfreude is misplaced. Deep down, those opposite who have an ounce of decency know why their hands-off approach was flawed from the start. It is the very reason that they say one thing in the House and something different when they slink out the side door back to their electorates.

Why doesn’t the coalition ask, any more, how many jobs are being created by the economic stimulus strategy? Why do you not ask that question any more? I remember when the Liberal Party used to stand for something. I remember that the National Party of my youth used to stand for something. Where have those agrarian socialists gone? How do those opposite live with themselves? Here is a piece of infrastructure the opposition should invest in—a big wall full of mirrors that they should drag into their party room tomorrow so that they can have a long, hard look—(Time expired)