Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

These are reasonably good times today but that does not guarantee good times tomorrow. Our country is succeeding and achieving in spite of not because of Labor. Our economy has overtaken Spain to become the world's 12th largest economy by GDP as measured by the IMF. Our vision for Australia is as ambitious as that of the ordinary Australian: we will deliver an economy that is inside the top 10 in the world within 10 years of assuming office.

Over last weekend I had the great pleasure of attending the Australasian Gaelic Football Championship in Canning Vale in my electorate of Tangney. I met with leaders in the Irish community. There they gave me the truth of sound fundamentals, talking down the economy and boom times. The business people I talked to said that their biggest problem was getting good staff, specifically engineers. These people know about competitiveness as they come from a country with no mineral resources at the cold western edge of Europe. Yet they were winning contracts in Japan, and Argentina, Chile and China.

I urge members opposite to take counsel in the Irish experience of boom and bust. Yes, we have had 21 years of continued economic growth. But in Ireland the construction sector lost 200,000 jobs in the space of 24 months. That country turned a net debt situation of 33 per cent of GDP in 2007-08 to 120 per cent of GDP in the same time. Unemployment went from four per cent to over 16 per cent and youth unemployment from six per cent to near 40 per cent. Contraction came sharply, suddenly and with shocking consequence.

One of the best leading indicators to assess the general health of the economy is the number of jobs advertised. The number of job vacancies advertised has dropped 25 per cent in the last six months in WA's the West Australian. The number of openings is down 10 per cent in this month alone. BHP, one of the most significant players and employers in my state, are getting ready to make redundancies. This is indicative of what the market is preparing to do. This is what an economist calls rebalancing or finding a new equilibrium; downsizing; rationalising. But definitions are cold comfort to the employees of Solver, which was downsized on High Road.

Business is under pressure because Labor is dumb on economics and stupid on business. There are a number of economic structural fragilities that need to be addressed immediately if we are to have a sustainable boom and not head towards another Ireland. Firstly there is the issue of educating or importing our engineers and more generally our most talented workers. What plan is in place to address the low take-up of hard sciences and maths at high school and university level? If the answer is Gonski, why is the government not funding it until 2022?

Look at the balance of payments and the money supply and at the outward flows of money by foreign workers and transfer pricing by multinational corporations. Foreign experts are sending money out of Australia. Foreign companies are paying tax outside Australia. They are leaving high prices in Perth. We need Australian led growth, driven by a return on sustainable domestic factors.

Philosophical differences will always be a part of political debate. Our competitiveness index score is going in the wrong direction. Liberals have an action plan to stop the rot. What business is telling me is that rents and wages are too high. Where is the sovereign wealth fund? Where is the incentive for self-funded retirees? We are not making the gains in productivity to justify the gains in average industrial wage. This happened in Ireland and it is happening here.

It is now, when China slows and times become leaner, that these structural deficiencies will become ever more viciously evident. I call on Labor to join the Coalition and be confident in our people. Invest in hard sciences and bold projects. Take risks for the future. It is time that we educate not import. At the end of the day, Labor may talk about Liberal jobs or Labor green jobs, but the only thing that I and the people of Tangney are interested in are Australian jobs.