Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the last 24 hours, the International Monetary Fund has just downgraded Australia's growth rate to 1.7 per cent. That is a downgrading which is four times larger than those of other advanced economies. We have a growth rate now which is lower than Greece's. It's a headline figure, but it is telling a deeply troubling story—the story of people who are going to the supermarket faced with the most difficult decision: what they do not buy with the money they do not have. And all the while these two here, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, are doing nothing—absolutely nothing.

Today, St Vincent de Paul have released a report which further illuminates this story. In the suburb of Corio in my electorate, in the last three years, 11 per cent of households—more than one in 10—have had their electricity cut off because they could not afford to pay the bill, and these two here, sitting opposite, are doing nothing about it—absolutely nothing. We have a drought in this country. Tenterfield is going to run out of water by Christmas and these guys are doing nothing about it. We have growth which is anaemic, we have wages which are stagnant and we have a government which is absolutely impotent. You were elected on 18 May to govern Australia. Get over your smugness and do your job.