Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We're back here for the first question time of the new parliament, but those opposite are still on holiday! They won the election and they've kicked back and cracked open a beer; they're sitting in the hammock and they've put on the Hawaiian shirts, but they're not turning up for work. The economy is deteriorating around their very eyes. We're seeing stagnant economic growth. We're seeing wages growth at record lows. We're seeing consumption tanking across the economy.

Sentient economic analysts—observers and commentators—reckon that the government ought to do something about this. We saw the Reserve Bank Governor come out earlier, literally begging the government to hop out of the hammock, to put on the suit and tie instead of the Hawaiian shirt and get to work—to start shovelling and to start doing some work.

What's their plan? Their plan is the old plan. Their plan is $95 billion off the budget in five years time. How's that going to help the economy at the moment? Even worse, they're not going to tell anyone where this is coming from. If you've got $95 billion of tax cuts in five years time you've got to take that from somewhere else in the budget. You cut from schools, you cut from hospitals—probably both, given their record.

In contrast, we will act now. Labor has sought to move amendments to this tax bill, both here and in the Senate, to give every Australian a tax cut in this term of parliament. Those opposite voted against it. They voted against it here and they voted against it in the Senate. They don't want every Australian to get a tax cut in this term of parliament, and that's what Labor is fighting for.