Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the Leader of the Opposition proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Government's failure to advance a positive agenda in the national interest.

I call upon all of those honourable 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

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The coalition like to tell us that they're about tradition, but this government is establishing a new tradition. They win power and then they don't know what to do with it. They're like the dog that catches the car. Tony Abbott, the first Prime Minister of the ATM government, was a Rottweiler. He knew how to bark. He barked, 'No, no, no,' to everything. He turned the coalition into the 'no-alition'. What happened was that, when he got to government, he had no plan to actually govern. He had no positive agenda. He acted like an opposition leader in exile on the government benches.

We then had Malcolm Turnbull. He had one idea, which was to become Prime Minister. That was his only idea. He gave up all of his ideas and values that he'd held over decades, such as support for climate change and being strong about recognising people in same-sex relationships. He abandoned all of his values and beliefs in order to secure that position. He even abandoned his commitment to an Australian republic. The member for Dickson stepped forward. He had three ideas. To become PM was the first one. He was going to smile more—remember that? But he had a third idea that was really bad. It was to outsource his numbers to the Minister for Finance. Step sideways, and we have the current Prime Minister.

There is some considerable irony in this Prime Minister—who keeps talking about which side you are on, including about national security—attempting to argue that, somehow, one side of this chamber is more serious about tackling terrorism than the other. It is totally divisive nonsense and quite clearly not in the national interest. Also, I have to say, it is a poor choice of words from a bloke who stood next to Malcolm Turnbull at the Prime Minister's office and said, 'I'm on his side!' We know how that ended up. As Niki Savva's book Plots and Prayers demonstrates, this was at the very same time as Mr Morrison's supporters were tactically voting for the member for Dickson, Peter Dutton, in order to undermine the very Prime Minister who they were saying that they were supporting out there. We won't be taking lessons from this turncoat, who sits in this chair, whose integrity is skewered so effectively by Savva's detailed analysis in that book, which is from direct Liberal Party sources.

What we're stuck with now is a third-term government with no agenda. We have the busted ATM government. They have no output and are wondering what to do. The clue is in the first two syllables of the word 'government'. It's gov-ern. That's what they should be doing. But they have no plan for economic growth, they have no plan for lifting consumer demand, they have no plan for productivity and they have no plan for dealing with the skills crisis. They certainly don't have a plan to deal with the recommendations that remain outstanding from the banking royal commission, as we saw today. They have no legislation to put forward before the House. They just sit on their hands over there with that born-to-rule mentality that they have, which they have been raised with from birth. They think that they have a right to rule and that working people should just know their place. We saw that with attack after attack on the trade union movement in this chamber today.

They don't have a plan for climate change. There's no energy policy still. They come out with rhetoric from the back bench—remember that coal-fired power station that's going to be built—but nothing actually happens. They then have said that they're going to go nuclear. They're going to have nuclear power plants, but they won't be just anywhere. I'll give you a clue: they can be somewhere where there's water. That's right around the coast and right around the rivers. We're waiting for one of the members opposite to put their hand up and say that they want a nuclear power plant in their electorate. They say they support dams, but they haven't built one. But they are upholding some tradition. John Howard said, when Prime Minister, that 'they've never had it so good'. Do you remember that?

The member for Petrie, of course, has cranked it up a notch, because he has said, as the minister responsible for homelessness, that homelessness needs a positive spin. He's gone on about the vacant properties that are there as the evidence. Well, it's hard not to think that there's a vacant property above the member for Petrie's shoulders! Maybe that's what he's referring to.

Who else wants to play 'You've never had it so good'? The person responsible for pensioners—come on down, Senator Ruston!—said that for pensioners to receive $66 a day is generous. That's what she said. And the next contestant: down lumbers the member for Hughes. He doesn't think pensioners have ever had it so good; he thinks they've had it too good! He wants the family home to be included in the pension assets test. For a mob who talk about retirees, they don't like pensioners. They now want to cut super rather than increase it to 12 per cent—the Liberals retiree tax.

This follows the short-changing of pensioners through not worrying about deeming rates until there have been five decreases in interest rates by the Reserve Bank. This is the same mob that changed the pension assets test, in conjunction with the Greens, which led to 88,000 pensioners losing their pension and 370,000 pensioners having their pension cut. They tried to scrap the energy supplement. They cut $1 billion from pensioner concessions in 2004. The one thing that you won't hear from this Prime Minister is, 'How good are pensioners?'—because he doesn't defend them.

Who else is out of touch? The Deputy Prime Minister says that if people are struggling for work then they should just move—move away from their community or move away from the connections that they have. Say what you like about his predecessor, Barnaby Joyce, the member for New England: he moved from St George to Tamworth to chase a job opportunity. He took it to heart, but that hasn't worked out all that well!

This is a government that is arrogant and out of touch. They have forgotten that it is their responsibility to govern. In the lead-up to just the second parliamentary sitting week, what did they say about the legislation they were introducing before this parliament? It was not that it was in the national interest, not that it was going to drive economic growth, not that it was going to create jobs, not that it was going to create social equity and not that it was going to deal with the environmental challenges in this country. What they said was that it was a test for Labor. It was all about them once again acting like an opposition in exile, a government in search of an agenda, a government in its third term searching for a reason for its very existence.

Yesterday, on the second day of the second sitting week of the 46th Parliament, the Senate ran out of business—no agenda. Imagine seeking political power just so you can get in white cars and sit on the ministerial benches, not so that you can change the country for the better, not so that you can make a difference to people's lives. That's the problem with those opposite. They define themselves by what they're against. We know they're against unions. We know they're against staff. But the problem is that they're against the Australian people when it comes to the need to lift living standards, the need to address the very significant challenges that are before this country at the moment. So they're sitting over there, after six years, three prime ministers, three deputy prime ministers and countless numbers on the front bench, and all they do is spit the dummy when Labor actually chooses—has the temerity—to question legislation and to try to improve it. Their very reason for existence is a question mark that's not just before us and before the nation but before themselves. We see that every answer in question time, year after year, starts with, 'Well, what Labor is doing'—what the other side are doing.

They need to create a positive agenda because they're presiding over an economy that is flatlining, an economy where interest rates are at one-third of the level they were at the GFC, an economy with low consumer demand, an economy with real issues with regard to security at work and an economy with productivity growth going backwards. This is a government in search of an agenda, and it needs to start acting like it rather than like an opposition in exile.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Minister for Population, Cities and Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It does not surprise me that the Labor Party does not understand our agenda, because, throughout the entire federal campaign and, indeed, for the months before the federal election, they were effectively on their coronation tour. They were just zipping around the country, waving in their regal way, doing their lap of honour, so confident that they were going to be on this side of the House that they barely bothered to look at the positive plans which the coalition was putting forward to the Australian people. I want to use my time today to talk about some of those positive plans that we've already enacted and that we will continue to enact.

The other thing that I noticed about the Leader of the Opposition's commentary and, indeed, the nature of this MPI in and of itself is that, effectively, they are saying to the Australian people, 'You got it wrong at the election.' 'We deserve to win,' they're saying. 'Look at that rabble. Why did you vote for them?' Well, can I tell you what? They did vote for the coalition. The quiet Australians supported us. They supported our agenda and they didn't want the Labor agenda. The Labor Party shouldn't be so arrogant, as they've been displaying today, given that the vote which the Labor Party got at the federal election, despite their arrogance, despite the coronation tour, was actually the lowest in 100 years. I reckon that, if you're a political party that has got the lowest primary vote in 100 years, you would be a bit less arrogant than this Labor Party is today and maybe a little bit more humble in terms of listening to the election result and listening to the Australian people about what they actually wanted.

And they did not want the high-taxing agenda which the Labor Party was promising. They did not want weak borders, which the Labor Party was promising. They did not want rents to go up. They did not want the housing market to collapse, which the Labor Party was promising. Rather, they wanted the agenda which we put forward: to keep the economy strong, to build infrastructure, to provide record funding in health and education, to continue to fund more medicines, to continue to keep our borders secure—I could go on. And I will go on in my remaining time and detail some of these plans that we actually did offer the Australian people.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Listen to them now. They're still laughing. They're still, effectively, laughing at the Australian people. The Australian people backed this plan, and the arrogance of the Labor Party to still be laughing at the things which we offered the Australian people just two months ago, which they supported and supported around the country—and we know how strongly people supported this plan in Queensland in particular. They wanted energy security. They wanted jobs up there, and that's what we were offering.

Let's have a look at some of our economic plans. We took to the election one of the biggest economic tax relief agendas in many elections. We wanted to lower taxes for 94 per cent of all Australians, with a particular focus on the low- and middle-income earners immediately. And so what have we done? The first bill that we took into this parliament once we were elected was precisely that bill—the bill which the Labor Party opposed. And that is delivering over $1,000 to every individual on lower and medium incomes right now as soon as they put in their tax returns. As the Treasurer has outlined, a great many people have already done that.

We're backing small business as well by lowering their taxes and extending the instant asset write-off. People who have been following the debate would know that just in the last couple of days we have backed our farmers as well, because our farmers are doing it particularly tough because of the drought. As members who have been listening closely would know, we have spent the last two days setting up a drought fund so that there will be money both now and in the future for when drought inevitably occurs in this great wide country of ours.

I'll tell you what else we're going to do. We, over the next three years and beyond, will be investing record amounts in infrastructure right across the country. We announced in the budget this year, just a month or two before the election, a $100 billion infrastructure plan. That was an increase from just 12 months earlier, when we announced a record $75 billion. You say we don't have an infrastructure plan. I think you are just deliberately turning your ears and eyes off. There is $100 billion and we have 150 major projects going on as we speak, with a further 150 major projects being planned that will be delivered in the very short term.

Just two weeks ago we opened the M4 tunnel for WestConnex. This is a project that will take 10,000 trucks off Parramatta Road. It's a project that will save people who live in Parramatta today and drive into the city 40 minutes every single day—20 minutes each way. Do you know what the opposition said in relation to this multi-billion-dollar project? They said that they're not supporting it because it's 'a road to nowhere'. Do you know where it goes? It goes to the western suburbs of Sydney. We don't think that's a road to nowhere, but the Leader of the Opposition said precisely that just two years ago. He said that, if he became infrastructure minister, he would not put a cent towards that $16 billion game-changing project in Western Sydney.

Another great project in Western Sydney that is underway as we speak is Western Sydney Airport. Already a billion cubic metres of dirt have been moved, and this project will be the single largest earthmoving project in Australian history, finally delivering a second international airport in the western suburbs of Sydney. Again, it's a massive project that the Labor Party, despite indicating they might support it, just could not get around to supporting. In my home state of Victoria, and in Melbourne in particular, we're getting the Melbourne Airport Rail Link finally done. This is a project that, again, should have been done probably two or three decades ago. Which government is actually going to deliver it? It is this government, with $5 billion on the table, ready to go. In South Australia, we've got the North-South Corridor—again, investing billions of dollars. In Western Australia, we've got the Metronet. We're investing more and more there. We've got the Tonkin Highway upgrades. In Queensland, we've got the M1 upgrades. We've got 166 Urban Congestion Fund projects, and I'm negotiating for state ministers right now to get those up and running and delivered over the next few years. This is a real agenda to make a real difference to people's lives, just as that WestConnex project, which the Labor Party opposed, is doing right now.

What if we talk about the environment? We've got our emissions reduction targets, which we are going well on. We're tracking towards a 28 per cent reduction by 2030. We'll meet our 2020 target—in fact, we'll beat our 2020 target—and we'll commit to our Paris commitments, which we will deliver on. On the health agenda, record funding is going to hospitals over the next few years. And we will continue to list a record number of medicines on the PBS. They are absolutely life-changing medicines, literally, for tens of thousands of people around this country. The government are doing it because we're able to manage the economy, run a budget surplus and fund more medicines, whereas the Labor Party had to stop funding medicines because they ran out of money. That is the absolute truth. This government runs a strong economy so that we can do things like fund medicines and make absolutely life-changing differences to people who can now afford some of the medicines that they could otherwise not afford.

In the education space, we continue to invest record amounts to schools right across the country. Ten thousand schools—every single one—are getting record amounts of funding. Guess how we do that. Again, by running a strong economy. In relation to national security, one of the first items of business is to reverse the bill that the Labor Party supported, with the crossbench, to make it much easier for illegal arrivals to come to this country. We have always been strong on border protection. We will continue to be strong on border protection, and that will be an ongoing agenda item. I could go on all afternoon in relation to our agenda, but the truth of the matter is: the quiet Australians supported us, and they did not support the Australian Labor Party.

Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The parliament recently paid tribute to one of Australia's greatest Prime Ministers, Bob Hawke. Bob Hawke loved Australia and Australians loved Hawkey. One of the reasons that they loved Bob Hawke was that he united Australians, brought us together and gave us hope. In fact, his '83 election campaign slogan was 'Bringing Australians together', and that is exactly what Bob Hawke did. As a result, Australians felt confident and proud. He united our nation and gave Australians hope.

That's in stark contrast to the approach of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government, which has been governing based on fear and division, setting Australians against each other. How many times have you heard this Prime Minister say, in respect of a piece of legislation or a policy, 'Whose side are you on?' trying to divide Australia and set Australians against each other? There's been not one piece of positive reform or legislation or plan to deal with the huge challenges facing us as a nation at the moment. Those opposite are more interested in wedging the Labor Party and playing politics in this place than in governing in the interests of all Australians.

This is a government that is self-obsessed and asleep at the wheel. You only need look at its approach to energy policy to see that that is a fact. After six years—six years—in government, those opposite still do not have a national energy policy. I had to laugh recently when the member for Hughes was asked in the media why the government doesn't have a national energy policy. His response was, 'Because the Labor Party is promoting renewable energy.' Can you believe it? After six years, they are still blaming the Labor Party for the fact that they cannot get their act together and they cannot end this war between the flat-earthers—the climate change deniers, which are in the majority in this government—and those that are more moderate over whether or not climate change is real and whether we should be reducing emissions in our economy.

They have had six different energy policies. We all remember the clean energy target, mark 1 and mark 2. They hit the fence pretty quick after Tony Abbott, the former member for Warringah, started advocating against them. Then we had the National Energy Guarantee, mark 1 and mark 2. I'll give the former Prime Minister his credit—he actually got the National Energy Guarantee through the coalition party room. They agreed to it. So instead of getting rid of the policy, they got rid of the Prime Minister. That's how unbelieving they are about climate change: they got rid of the Prime Minister! Then 'the big stick' was introduced—that hit the fence as well. And now they've come up with a divestment power, which they still haven't brought to the parliament. After six years there's still no energy policy, and it's Australian families, pensioners and small businesses that have paid the price for the division and chaos of this government, through skyrocketing electricity prices.

We have an economy that is floundering under this government's watch, with the slowest economic growth since the global financial crisis and the longest per-capita recession since 1982. Wages and incomes aren't growing at all and are growing eight times slower than profits. We've got rising unemployment and youth unemployment, five years of weak productivity growth, weak household spending, falling consumer confidence and shockingly bad business conditions. If you go down any main street of any town in Australia and ask those small businesses how they're feeling about business conditions at the moment, the answer will always come back that they've never felt so bad. The saddest indictment on this government is that living standards for Australians have not been growing as fast as they were under a Labor government. And the largest indictment of all—and this says everything about this government's management of our economy: the Australian economy was the eighth-fastest-growing economy in the OECD in 2013; as a result of this government's mismanagement, at this point in time Australia is the 20th-fastest-growing economy in the OECD. We've fallen from eighth under the Labor Party to 20th under this government. Within every element of Australian society, people are struggling—young Australians, pensioners, families, small businesses, people with a disability, the unemployed and those waiting for aged-care places. The only people that have been doing well are those in big business. And is it any wonder that those opposite voted 26 times against a banking royal commission, because we know whose side they are on. Despite the shock and outrage that Australians saw, regarding the royal commission, not one piece of legislation to implement the royal commission recommendations has been brought into this parliament. It says everything about this government. They are more interested in dividing and wedging the Labor Party, and dividing based on fear and chaos, than in governing in the interests of all Australians.

Nicolle Flint (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We on this side of the House took a very positive plan to the 18 May election, and I'm really proud of that plan. It was a positive plan, and we ran a very positive campaign. I wish we could say the same for those opposite, and I will certainly be saying a lot about that in the future.

I'm really pleased to speak on this matter today, because when it comes to advancing a positive agenda for the Australian people, for our nation and for the national interest it is the Morrison government that comes to mind. But don't take my word for it. If we cast our minds back just a few months, it was the Australian people who backed our positive plan for the nation. Our government took our plan to the Australian people, and the Australian people gave us responsibility for implementing our agenda. And that's exactly what we're doing.

I can't think of a more positive agenda for Australia than delivering tax relief for hardworking Australians, leaving more of the money that they have worked hard to earn in their pockets. They're the best people to spend their money. It's our government that delivered immediate tax relief for low- and middle-income earners as soon as we got back to parliament, and I'm incredibly proud that we did that. More than 10 million workers will receive a tax offset when they do their tax return this year, with around 4.5 million people who are hardworking Australians receiving the full amount of just over $1,000.

We're also delivering short-, medium- and long-term reform to our tax system, which means that by the time our tax relief plan is fully implemented 94 per cent of taxpayers will pay no more than 30 cents in the dollar. To me, that sounds exactly like advancing a positive agenda for the nation and a positive agenda for hardworking Australians. But our tax plan won't just reward hardworking Australians; it will also strengthen our economy. And we know why a strong economy matters. A strong economy means we can afford to guarantee the essential services that all Australians rely on, whether that's education, health care, delivering important infrastructure upgrades or looking after our environment. On health, for example, it means record funding for Medicare, a fully funded NDIS with no increase to the Medicare levy to deliver that, and funding for more than 2,000 new life-changing and live-saving medicines worth more than $10 billion on the PBS. That is what we have delivered and are delivering for the Australian people.

The local residents in my electorate of Boothby are directly seeing the benefits of our health funding firsthand at the old Repatriation General Hospital site in Daw Park, which is in the heart of my electorate and is very much the heart of my electorate. This is a very significant hospital precinct for my community. It's a place where, for generations, veterans who have made the ultimate sacrifice or put their hand up to make the ultimate sacrifice for our country have gone for treatment. It's a place that's very dear to their heart, and it's a place that was closed down by the former state Labor government.

Unfortunately, everyone on that side of this place, particularly those South Australian federal members, stood by and watched the former Weatherill Labor government shut down the repat, much to the great distress of my community, particularly the veterans community. I'm incredibly proud that the Morrison and Marshall Liberal governments are reactivating the repat hospital. This is an incredibly positive thing to do for my community, and I can't wait to see the building soon commence. The federal government is providing more than $40 million of funding towards reactivating the precinct, which will support a state-of-the-art brain and spinal injury unit at the site.

We're putting our specialist dementia care unit for South Australia there, to care for some of our most vulnerable citizens. It is absolutely critical that they are in a place that is safe, where they will be provided with a wonderful level of care and they will never again be out of sight or out of mind. We are also establishing a residential eating-disorder unit there, which we know is desperately needed. Also, we will be placing a brand-new veterans wellbeing centre there, which I'm working on very closely with my veterans community. These are just some of the very positive things the Morrison government is delivering for hardworking Australians.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is the sixth sitting day since the election. When you consider that one of the days was filled by the normal procedures that happen with a new parliament, it's only five sitting days. I sit here and reflect on what would have happened if there had been a different election outcome. Of course, we respect the outcome, but I think we would have a front bench of ministers doing a whole lot of work—for example, in the education sector. There would have been a whole lot of work on rolling out legislation and commitments on childcare services, early childhood education opportunities, rebuilding the financing around school education, and significant major reform in the post-secondary education sector. There would have been a health minister looking at rolling out our pensioner dental plan and initiatives such as cancer reform. But we didn't win the election; those on the other side did.

I look at them and I think: what are they doing? Five sitting days! I have to keep googling to make sure I'm actually in the 46th Parliament, because you would be forgiven for thinking that, in some horrendous time warp, we had all come back and were sitting in the 45th Parliament. We came into question time and the government said: 'How are we going to fill the time?' As the Leader of the Opposition said, 'We caught the car we didn't expect to catch: how are we going to fill the time? Go and check out some legislation we couldn't get through the 45th Parliament. We'll roll that out and see if we can have another shot at that. It was really good, because by making it the debate in this place'—the peak, leadership body for legislating, decision-making and policymaking in the nation—'we could spend all the time, resources and energy, and the privilege we have of being here, on having another round of "Let's bash the Labor Party"'. That's apparently all that is in the national interest.

It was an emergency to pass drought policy so that those opposite could take a quick and easy shot and say that Labor opposes drought support for farmers—a policy you're not even starting to pay out for another 12 months. It gave you a full day to spend all your time, energy and resources, and the responsibility and privilege you have in sitting on those benches, taking a cheap shot at us. That's what it was about. Today we've had a whole lot of questions on militant unions. Good grief! You spent the whole 45th Parliament talking about that; now you're going to waste the whole 46th Parliament talking about that. This is an absolute abrogation of your responsibility. As so many of you opposite have said, you did win the election. The Australian people have given you this great privilege to put forward an agenda that is about their interests.

We've had two sort of conflicting stories from those opposite. We have a whole lot of people getting up and saying, 'Everything is great. Look how good we are. Look how successful we've been with the economy.' Every now and then, when they want to do something like tax cuts, they'll get up and say, 'Oh, headwinds in the economy—things are getting a bit difficult. We need to be able to do something about it.' Let me tell you, there are serious issues facing people in our economy. In my community, in communities all around the country, people are not spending. There's a real crisis in confidence. Wages have flatlined. People are concerned about their capacity to continue to meet the costs of living. These are the sorts of things that you should be turning your minds to. To be quite honest, from some of the speeches I hear, I would say some of the backbenchers want to be talking about that. But this frontbench—and you should be taking them to task for this—are using all their opportunities, particularly in debates like question time, and their whole strategy, in their whole messaging to the people of this nation, is to have cheap shots at us about anything they can. That is not national leadership. That is not working in the best interests of this nation. That is not governing for the best interests of the people who we have the privilege to represent in this place.

Politics is a contest. Sometimes you'll disagree with us and you'll have a shot at us. It goes back again with our feelings about your policies. That's a wholly different case to expending all your time and energy, all your focus, all your resources, all your conversations in this place and every opportunity in this place to simply wedge Labor instead of doing your job.

Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Cunningham for her contribution to this MPI discussion. I want to start by apologising to her. It is not our intention to be too critical of the Labor Party. We don't want to get them offside. We certainly want them to understand how we're trying to make Australia better. Indeed, I will personally speak to the frontbench to make sure that they stop taking cheap shots and start buying the more expensive shots that they can aim at the Labor Party.

This is the MPI that you get when you have outsourced your MPIs to focus groups for six years and you can't afford to have a focus group now. I know of the bottom drawer in the desk that this MPI has come out of. This is real touching-the-void stuff. The Labor Party has finally proven today that there is a difference between being watchable and being illuminating. This little ray is pitch-black.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Are you a little ray of sunshine?

Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. I was going for that. Their arguments have been almost as thin as a homeopathic soup made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that starved to death. This is terrible.

Is this a government that isn't doing it? In my own electorate we have a new $1½ billion hospital, a $1 billion road, $250 million for road widening, $2 million for a surf-lifesaving club, $1.5 million for a new clubhouse for the football association—which I'm informed is not soccer—$500,000 for solar panels on golf clubs, a 62 per cent increase in education funding per student in public schools, and two kids in Terrey Hills now able to afford lifesaving drugs and able to live full lives because of the management of this government and its ability to put lifesaving drugs on the PBS. That is what government is about. That's what hope is about. That is what opportunity is about. That's what government looks like when you're not always asking a focus group how to run your party. It's just appalling. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. I'm sorry, there I go again being critical of you. Sorry, I didn't mean to do that.

This MPI is a blunder so epic it requires an orchestra to introduce it. It needs one of the orchestras that they had for Star Wars. We've found in the last five days that the Labor Party want to talk about us because they are in favour of increased taxes but are against drought relief. It's like an episode of The Vicar of Dibley'No, no, no, yes. We were in favour.' Then we had on border security, 'No, no, no. It's so bad. It's unconstitutional, but yes.' This is what we have from the Labor Party—no ideas and no clues. They are about to fall in over themselves.

But there is one thing that they will stand up for—trade union officials who break the law. Anyone watching Sky today would have seen the President of the ACTU claiming that it is unions that stop wage theft, especially in the restaurant industry. She was asked, 'What did you guys do around that theft?' She said: 'There were lots of people involved, lots of players involved. We were there. We did something. We saw it happening.' Then there was: 'But we were told that the workers rang the union and the union didn't return the phone calls. Is that right?' She said: 'Yes. Well, that can happen sometimes. They're very busy.' Isn't that why they finally went to the Fair Work Ombudsman, an ombudsman whose budget you, the Labor Party, cut by 20 per cent? You guys say you believe in all this stuff, but all you want to do is sound good; you don't actually want to do any good. It's a compare-and-contrast situation. When you guys were in government, you did a horrible job. You led on debt and deficit. You led an economy that was going down the drain. You did nothing about protecting workers, and you did nothing about lawlessness on Australian worksites. You're still in here claiming you're an opposition, but you're not even that.

Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Nothing illustrates the premise of the question better than that risible contribution from the member for Mackellar. This truly is a government without purpose. The member for Mackellar had five minutes to talk about the purpose, achievements and agenda of this government, and all he spent five minutes doing was saying, 'Labor, Labor, Labor.' It is absolutely tiresome. It's tiresome for me, I know it's tiresome for the gallery and it's tiresome for the people of Australia. They expect a government that is going to govern in their interests and stop talking about the opposition and start talking about a positive plan for the country.

We had the contribution from the member for Boothby where I think she was having a little game with herself, seeing how many times she could say the word 'positive'. She said, 'We have a positive plan.' What was the positive plan? I was sitting here waiting to hear what the positive plan was, and it never emerged. I think she said 'positive' about 10 times in that speech—I'm happy to be corrected—but she never once said what the positive plan was.

We are at nine weeks after the election. It is nine weeks after the election in which the Australian people gave the government members the benefit of the doubt and gave them another term. We accept that. That was the will of the Australian people. We're two weeks into the 46th Parliament and this is a government so bereft of any ideas that just the other night, in the second week of this parliament, it ran out of legislation in the Senate. It sent the Senate home early—lights off, click, dark night, everybody home. That's the story of this government.

It was certainly the story of this government in the 45th Parliament, where we had it running out of legislation and members racking off to the airport early—lazy, no work ethic, all spin and all politics. Those opposite and their backers on late-night pay TV like to parrot, for example, how good they are at managing the economy. That's what they hang everything on. If it's not fear and smear with national security, it's the strong economy and what great economic managers they are. Well, let's look at the facts. The fact is that, under the Liberals, net debt has more than doubled since Labor left office. Labor did leave a debt. We make no apology for that. We left a debt because we had to contend with the global financial crisis that smashed the world economy. Labor kept Australia on an even keel economically, and that cost money to do. Every world economist praised Labor's management of the economy at that time. Since 2013, there's been no global financial crisis and yet this government has more than doubled net debt in rosy economic times.

What else tells the story of the economic agenda of this government? Supposedly, according to the member for Mackellar and his colleagues, Labor was a shockingly bad economic manager. In 2013, when Labor left office, we were the eighth-fastest-growing economy in the world. Australia was the eighth-fastest-growing economy when we left those opposite the economy. What is it now? After six years of economic global sunshine, we're now the 20th fastest. After six years of Liberal government, we have gone down that scale.

Here are some other facts. Gross debt is at record highs under this government. Both kinds of debt are growing at a faster clip on the Liberals' watch than under the previous Labor government, and we had the global financial crisis to deal with. The state of the economy under the Liberals is concerning, with the slowest economic growth since the global financial crisis, the longest per capita recession since the 1982 recession, stagnant and flatlined wages that are eight times slower than profits, and corporate profits growing at eight times the rate of wages. The nexus is broken. The fairness trajectory is broken. Wages once kept pace with profits and that is now broken. Workers are doing the work and not getting a fair pay for it under this government. Rising underemployment, rising youth unemployment, slowing employment growth, five years of weak productivity growth, weak household spending, falling consumer confidence—the list of the failures of economic management from six years of a Liberal government goes on and on. And what do we have in this contribution from those opposite? There is not one word about their plans to tackle the economic mess under their government.

Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to start with an admission: I will admit that the member for Grayndler actually got up my nose. It's pretty rare in this place that something will actually annoy me to this point, but it tends to be what the Labor Party has done, particularly in the last election. It's this announcement, this class separation, this attack that we on this side of the parliament don't represent working people, that we have a born-to-rule mentality. I can tell you that I'm an electrician. My brothers are harvesting contractors. They are teachers. One has had an epiphany and gone back to university. My father was a timber cutter. Those on that side stand there and say we don't represent working people. We are working people! I can tell you that the people of Queensland in particular are on to you, because in my electorate, at the last election, your primary vote dropped to 22 per cent, so your class warfare tactics quite simply did not work.

I know that the values they espouse are not the ones that they believe in. The people of Australia agree. It is why they didn't vote for them at the last election. The Labor Party had their opportunity. They took their agenda to the people, as we did. They were defeated. The question that the member for Grayndler comes up with all the time is: which side are you on? Well, you're on the opposition side and have been for three terms. There is a reason for that; you are not putting forward an agenda that people agree with. We have had an election. There has been an outcome. The people have agreed with the agenda we have put forward. So I say to you on the opposite side: stop the class warfare. It does you no good. In fact, it is alienating the people who had voted for you for decades. All of those individuals who go to work in their steel-capped boots and hi-vis shirts who used to vote for you now vote for us. It is quite straightforward.

We hear from the opposition constantly about Bob Hawke. They keep bringing up the issue of Bob. I admit Bob was a very popular Prime Minister. One of the things that were spoken about the former Prime Minister Bob Hawke was something that was raised once again by the member for Grayndler: that the former Prime Minister had said to him, 'Don't be afraid of risk.' And yet we continue to see those on the opposite side continuing with their attacks on working-class people, their attacks on class systems. It is absolutely wrong.

In terms of what we are doing as a government, we are delivering and we continue to deliver. In fact, we delivered trade agreements with China, with South Korea and with Japan. All of those have meant an increase in what we do in regional areas in particular. For my electorate, what that has meant is we are now the biggest producer of macadamia nuts in this country. Why? It is because the majority of those are exported to markets where we have an advantage under these trade agreements. That was negotiated and delivered by this government. We continue to negotiate on things like IA-CEPA, on the TPP Agreement, which was successful, and on the EU agreement. If we want to build opportunities for people in this country, they need jobs, and those jobs come from trade. We are a trading nation. The more trade we have, the more jobs we have. We must continue to expand our opportunities for our economy, and that is what we as a government are doing. We are absolutely doing it.

I congratulate Prime Minister Scott Morrison. His announcement last week of a select committee to look at regional development—at what those opportunities are in the future for regional Australia—is a very smart move. It will allow us to deliver a platform which I think we can take to the next election, because we need to grow opportunities in regional Australia. We should stop having people like those opposite talk down the Australian economy. That is what you continue to do in all of your attacks on the Australian economy. It is about confidence. Anyone who has been in business knows—as you know, Deputy Speaker Hogan—that business is about confidence. So I'd say to those opposite again: stop talking down the Australian economy and give every Australian business the opportunity to expand, to grow and to employ more people—and in particular those Australians who live in regional areas, because they absolutely deserve that opportunity.

All of us in this place know that we have an issue with population shift. We need individuals in regional Australia who are highly skilled, who are qualified, who can do the work that we need. We don't need them all to silo to the cities. So we need to adjust and look at those opportunities. But we know, through the contribution of the member for Kingsford Smith, when he spoke about power—well, once again, I'll make it really clear: that's a state responsibility. In Queensland the price is set entirely by the Queensland government, not by anyone else. They own nearly all of it. They own the generators or 70 per cent of them; they own the transmission. They set the price. There is nothing you can do from this building to change that. That is the outcome. And I say again: stop your attacks. Class warfare does not work for you.

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If there was any more evidence needed that this is a government without purpose and without agenda, all you would need to do was listen to each of those members opposite in this MPI today.

Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why are you so mean?

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Toughen up, princess! This is, as we've seen, a government without an agenda, led by a Prime Minister who wants us all to believe that he somehow Bradbury-ed his way to becoming the lead muppet of his very own muppet show. This is a government under which we've seen the slowest economic growth since the global financial crisis. Australia is now in the longest per capita recession since 1982. But this government treats it like the first rule of Fight Club.

The national economy has fallen from the eighth fastest growing in the OECD in 2013 to the 20th. Stagnant wages are growing eight times slower than profit. There is rising underemployment and youth unemployment. In my electorate I've got 16 per cent youth unemployment. There is slowing employment growth—five years of weak productivity, weak household spending, falling consumer confidence and weak business conditions, including a sluggish retail sector. Business investment is at its lowest since the 1990s. Living standards are growing slower under the Liberals than they ever were under Labor.

The only plan this government seems to have is a plan to deliberately keep wages low. Let's not forget, that's the centrepiece of their economic policy. That's it: keep wages low. Where are the bills pursuing the recommendations of the royal commission? Where are the bills on superannuation, on Newstart, on training and education, on health, on wage theft? Where are they? This is now the second week we've been here, and we've got a Senate that's run out of legislation. We've got a Minister for Families and Social Services who called the pension 'generous'—66 bucks a day. My mum's on the pension, and I can tell you now, that's not generous. She gets by because she's lucky enough to have a family who supports her when she needs to pay that electricity bill or that water bill or that gas bill. But I know there are many pensioners out there who don't have that, and it is an absolute affront to all those Australians who worked hard enough all their lives and are now on a pension for that minister to call it generous. It actually makes me really angry. That's it. That's their agenda: keep wages low, the pension is generous. Oh, and there's one more—how good is homelessness! That's the spin. I can see the ads now, developed by their very own ad man, the Prime Minister: 'How good is homelessness!'

Australians need leadership. Australians deserve leadership, and they have charged each and every one of us here with providing that—each and every one of us, on both sides of the House, on all sides of the House. Instead, they have a government with no purpose that is either unable or unwilling to bring to this House an agenda that addresses issues—issues of wage stagnation, issues of underemployment, issues of poverty and homelessness, and an economy that under their watch is failing everyday hardworking Australians. This is the government we have. They like to talk a lot about people who have a go. I find it very interesting when this government talks about people who have a go. How about you give them a go? How about you help them have a go? How about, for those who have a go but don't always get a go, you come into this place and you stand here and do something for them? You help them. Because, until then, until we have a government that leads, a government that governs, a government that at least has an agenda, something we can talk about—give us something!—this is not government. This is not governance. And this government will continue to be a government without purpose.

Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is possibly the most ironic matter of public importance presented to this House in a very long time—the idea of failing to advance a positive agenda. It's ironic because, six years ago, the Leader of the Opposition ran for the leadership of his party and lost to the member for Maribyrnong. He's had six years to think about the positive agenda he might build for the Australian Labor Party, yet all we have got is the same old Labor. In the Leader of the Opposition's words, they won power. He won power but he doesn't know what to do with it. Nothing has changed in relation to the Labor Party since he became leader. In fact, what we have heard is the same old 1970s-style class war speech from this Leader of the Opposition that we used to get from the former Leader of the Opposition. You'd think that, when seven out of 10 Australians put another party at No. 1 on their voting paper above the Labor Party, it would cause them to think again about their forward agenda. But they haven't. They've got no positive agenda. They've just opposed. This is despite the so-called listening tour that the Leader of the Opposition has taken. He's obviously and clearly not listening.

What have they done since we've returned to parliament? They've opposed tax relief. They've opposed the drought fund. They've opposed cleaning up workplaces. Indeed, the member for Cunningham in her contribution demonstrated that there is a level of union militancy denial on the Labor side. They are happy not to have John Setka as part of their club, but they'll turn a blind eye to any standing over and intimidating ordinary working people in workplaces. They took to the election the most negative and economy-destroying policies that we've ever seen—$387 billion in taxes on retirees, small businesses, homeowners, renters, farmers and energy. They had an electric car policy that they couldn't explain, and they had the policy of open borders. Despite the listening tour, we have the same old talking points; it's the same old lines and the same old Labor.

They asked about our positive agenda, and we've got a very big positive agenda, such as the tax reform agenda that we've pursued in the last couple of weeks, where Australians earning up to $126,000 now receive up to $1,080 back in tax relief; small business tax relief, by extending the instant asset write-off to companies with a turnover of up to $50 million and extending that instant asset write-off purchase to $30,000; the plan for job creation, with 1.3 million jobs; the way we are helping our farmers, through the drought relief fund and through the legislation that is currently before this House in relation to outlawing vegan activists who would go onto people's properties and invade them and try and disrupt and destroy one of the great industries in this country. There is our crackdown on the CFMMEU and lawless unions, because we know that ordinary working people going to work should be allowed to go about their business without being stood over, without being intimidated, while just being able to do the job they are paid for.

On home ownership, we have our First Home Loan Deposit Scheme to increase the ability of first home owners to buy a home. In terms of schools, no government in the history of the Commonwealth has put more money into schools. In my own electorate, there is a billion dollars to Berowra schools between now and 2024, whether they are government, independent or Catholic. In health, we're listing medicines on the PBS. There is $308 million for that, to reduce the cost of medicines for ordinary families. Remember: when Labor was in office last time, they stopped listing medicines on the PBS. There will be $31 billion that will go into public hospitals. At Services Australia we are making the interactions that ordinary Australians have with the Commonwealth government easier, and we're using technology to provide easier and better ways for people to engage with the Commonwealth. There is defence, shipbuilding and looking after our veterans, including improving the way in which veterans are dealt with.

These are key things that are part of our positive agenda. When I think about who in my own electorate is benefitting, it is commuters. People are going to benefit from the $412 million investment in NorthConnex, from the $10 million that will go into planning New Line Road, from $7 million that will go into Hornsby quarry and from the work that we are doing to bolster the oyster industry to give people on the Hawkesbury whose industry collapsed 10 years ago the chance for the first time to try a triploid Pacific oyster in the wild. We have a very positive agenda. It's those opposite who still haven't learnt.

Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The discussion is now concluded.