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

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

The need for a comprehensive economic plan to get the economy moving again.

I call upon those 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—

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I suspect that the Treasurer is secretly happy about the scandal which is engulfing the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General. This is not just because it makes life very difficult for his rivals, which is obviously his overriding, highest priority, but also because it obscures what has been his serious mismanagement of the economy over his time as Treasurer. For the past six months at least, we've seen one humiliating number after another from this incompetent Treasurer and this arrogant Prime Minister. These are the same two blokes who ran around Australia during the election and said that they would make the economy 'even stronger' when in reality they've made it even weaker. They are two guys who presided over the weakest growth in decades and who doubled the debt, something that the Prime Minister misled the parliament about earlier on today.

Whether the number in the national accounts tomorrow is 1.6, 1.7 or 1.8, it will show that in this country we are getting below-average economic growth from a below-average government. It will show that growth hasn't been strong enough or broad enough, it hasn't trickled down to the people and it hasn't trickled out to the suburbs. It will show that an absence of a plan from this Morrison government has cost Australia, its people and its economy very dearly, because growth with a '1' in front of it has not been enough to ensure good, well-paid jobs for enough Australians.

The day before national accounts, it's traditional for there to be lots of predictions flying around about what the numbers will be—what the quarterly number, the annual number and the components of growth in this country will be. People are hunched over their spreadsheets in the banks and other institutions—the Reserve Bank and elsewhere—working out what the number might be tomorrow. But I think only one thing can be predicted with absolute certainty: no matter what the number is tomorrow, the Treasurer will say he's doing a really good job. He has always been his own biggest fan, this Treasurer. He is a massive admirer of his own performance. And he will expect the people of this country to form an orderly queue to pat him on the back and tell him what a genius he is even if growth is once again below average as it has been for some time. That's how horrendously out of touch this Treasurer and this government are. If he gets put under pressure as he was again in question time today, he'll say it's all our fault. It's all somehow Labor's fault.

He'll say that the economic fundamentals are strong, that the policy settings are right, that ordinary Australians have never had it so good. But those same policy settings from those opposite have been a recipe for feeble growth, for record debt, for stagnant wages, for rising unemployment and for weak investment, and it's time that a government in its third term and in its seventh year actually took responsibility for the weakness in the economy on their watch. It's not enough just to pretend that you're good at managing the economy, when the facts tell a very different story. Just in the last week we learned there's been a decline in job ads, a decline in sales, a decline in building approvals, a decline in inventories, the first decline in multifactor productivity in eight years and the first decline in labour productivity since that record began a quarter of a century ago.

If you don't want to take just last week, think about what we have learned in the last month. Wages growth slowed even further; unemployment and underemployment both went up; 19,000 jobs were lost; retail trade went backwards, the worst result since the recession of the early nineties; capital expenditure declined further, more than 30 per cent lower under this government than before that; and the RBA said that they were contemplating unconventional monetary policy. If you don't want to take the last month, consider that, since the election, economic growth is the slowest in a decade; household debt is at new record highs; business investment is the lowest since the early nineties; there have been three interest rate cuts; the RBA, the IMF and the OECD all downgraded their expectations for growth; and net debt hit $400 billion for the first time in Australia's history. If you don't want to take last week, last month or what has happened since the election and you want another set of evidence about this government's chronic mismanagement of the economy, think about this. These are all the things that have gone backwards on their watch. The domestic private economy? Backwards. Productivity? Backwards. GDP per capita?

Opposition members: Backwards.

Manufacturing production?

Opposition members: Backwards.

Private business investment?

Opposition members: Backwards.

Retail volumes?

Opposition members: Backwards.

Construction work?

Opposition members: Backwards.

Capex?

Opposition members: Backwards.

The list goes on and on. Tomorrow, when we go beyond all the spin, all the finger-pointing, all the buck-passing and all the excuse-making from those opposite, one thing is incredibly clear: the economy is not delivering for working people. Our side of parliament understands that; that side of the parliament will never understand what's going on in real communities for real people. The economy is not delivering for the almost two million Australians who are looking for work or for more work. It's not delivering for the broad swathes of the Australian community who feel, with some justification, that, no matter how hard they work, they just can't keep up with the rising costs of child care, electricity and private health insurance.

It's not delivering for working people, because this government actually has the worst record for wages growth of any government ever. This record on wages is so bad that the Reserve Bank has now told us that, under those opposite—a government in its third term, in its seventh year—weak wages is now 'the new normal'. Think about that for a moment. What a remarkably pessimistic thing for the Reserve Bank to say about wages under those opposite! After six-and-a-bit years of those opposite you can come to no other conclusion that, with the policy settings of those opposite, working Australians are never going to get a look in. They haven't been getting a look in and they won't get a look in.

Most Australians would consider the Reserve Bank saying that weak wages growth is the new normal is a damning indictment of those opposite. Most people would think that is something a government should be really embarrassed about, if not ashamed about, but those opposite consider it a triumph. We know this because the finance minister, in a burst of honesty, said low wages growth and weak wages growth was a deliberate design feature of the economic policy of those opposite. The Reserve Bank considers weak wages growth to be the new normal; those opposite consider it to be mission accomplished. That's what they've been going for. I say to every Australian who is working hard but just can't get ahead: that is how those opposite want you to be. That is the permanent position they want you to be in. That's a deliberate design feature of what those opposite want for you.

As I said, the economy is not working for working people, and those opposite should stop pretending that it is. No matter what the numbers tell us tomorrow, we already know enough about weakness in the economy to know that something needs to change. We can't continue down this path of a Morrison government without a plan to boost growth and wages in our economy. Since the election, the government has been faced with an avalanche of disappointing data. At every point, at every juncture, they've had a choice. They could dismiss it, deny it, play politics and pretend they've had nothing to do it, or they could come up with a real plan to deal with it. So puffed up have they been with post-election hubris—as we've seen in almost every answer the Prime Minister has given in this place—and with their own self-importance, their arrogance, their belief that they are above the rules and shouldn't be held accountable for anything, that they get that simple choice wrong every single time.

Whatever the growth number is tomorrow in the national accounts, whatever the Treasurer says about it tomorrow, annual growth with a 1 in front of it, if that's the outcome, just isn't enough. It's not enough to create the opportunities that Australians need and deserve. It's not enough to make communities thrive, not just survive. It's not enough to ensure that the working people of this country, when they put in effort, can get ahead and not just get by. What we've seen in the six months since the government's election and the six years since their first election is that ordinary Australians are paying the price for a government which has a political strategy but not an economic plan. It's way beyond time for the government to change course and look after working Australians for once.

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The problem with the shadow Treasurer making a speech like that is that he lacks all credibility on these issues. He lacks absolutely any credibility on economic issues. He sets tests for the government that he never met when he was the senior adviser to our worst Treasurer ever, Wayne Swan. When we came to government, we inherited a slowing economy, we had rising unemployment and we had a worsening budget position. So, on every single measure that the shadow Treasurer referred to, things were in a worse position when he had control of the levers. Yet every achievement by this government is not enough for the failed shadow Treasurer, who was the failed chief of staff to Australia's worst Treasurer, in Wayne Swan.

The reality is that the Australian economy is in good shape, and the Treasurer outlined that in question time today, whether he was quoting ratings agencies or quoting the Reserve Bank. If you compare Australia to the nations we should compare ourselves to—big, established, stable democratic economies—we are growing faster than any country in the G7. Wages growth is higher than the wages growth that we inherited from the Labor Party. This is the irony of the debate. The Labor Party come in here every day bemoaning wages growth, yet it was lower when they were last in government—never heard a word about it from the Labor Party when they were in government, never. Minimum wages under the Labor Party, the great champions of the workers, decreased in three of the six years that they were in government. Under the coalition government, they have risen every year.

When you come to the dispatch box to make these statements, you've got to have credibility, and the absolute worst person for the opposition to put up in these sorts of debates is the failed shadow Treasurer. Perhaps the only worse person that you could put up in this MPI is the member for McMahon—the member for McMahon, who's still got extraordinary power within the Labor Party, because every single one of his policies is still on the books. Every single one of the Labor Party's policies, the failed policies that they took to the election, is still on the books. We saw it this week, and I outlined it in question time. There was an extraordinary report in the Fin Review this week that the shadow housing minister, in a speech, had said that Labor's negative gearing policies were not dead. So we've got the shadow housing minister, in some sort of alliance with the shadow Treasurer, clinging on, holding on for dear life, to all of the higher taxes that the Labor Party took to the election and on which the Australian people delivered their verdict.

There were the one million retirees who would have been hit by the Labor Party's proposed removal of franking credit refunds. The member for McMahon very helpfully before the election quite strongly recommended that those people vote against them—and, boy, did they take that advice! Boy, did those retirees take the member for McMahon's advice! So that's still on the books.

What about the $30-odd billion of extra superannuation taxes? I think we all remember the former opposition leader who magically forgot about those at a doorstop during the election campaign—$30 billion is just a bit of a rounding error for the Labor Party when you're talking about increasing taxes by $387 billion!

Ms Payne interjecting—

Ms Murphy interjecting—

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Canberra and the member for Dunkley are warned.

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about increased taxes on family businesses? What about increased taxes, essentially, on electricity and cars? What about the taxes that we have seen a devastating impact just from the prospect of—those being Labor's housing taxes that I referred to earlier? We now categorically know the shadow housing minister is arguing around the opposition ministerial table that they should keep those housing tax policies. We saw what that did to confidence in the housing market—the prospect of Labor's housing taxes doubling capital gains tax and abolishing negative gearing for the tens of thousands of Australians, most of whom are on average incomes, who seek to invest in a property to provide for their future. We see the shadow housing minister still arguing for those. I suspect most people on the front bench here will be making the same arguments.

Ms Payne interjecting—

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Canberra will remove herself under 94(a).

The member for Canberra then left the chamber.

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What do we see from the Labor Party now? We see a Labor Party that's got no credibility. We've got a Labor Party that puts up the shadow Treasurer, who's failed in everything he's done, to then set bars and tests for this government that the Labor Party never met. As the Treasurer said in question time today, I understand the instinctive reaction of oppositions to be relentlessly negative. I understand that. An opposition feels the need to criticise the government of the day. An opposition feels the need to see bad things in everything that happens. But they should take the advice of that failed former Treasurer of theirs, Wayne Swan, when he said:

It is important that our political leaders work hard to build confidence in our economy and not be out there talking down the economy.

If you listened to the shadow Treasurer's speech here today, he would essentially go into any forum of a G7, where we've got a faster growing economy, and trash every single one of those economies based on the test that he set at this dispatch box. If you look at a whole range of other statistics—these are unarguable statistics—unemployment now is lower than when we came to government. Employment growth under the Labor Party was just 0.7 per cent. Now it's at two per cent—twice the OECD average.

This is what Labor don't understand. We believe that the first object of government, of course, is keeping our citizens safe and the second is doing everything we possibly can to create the environmental certainty and the economic circumstances for them to get a job. That's absolutely the most critical thing that a government can do. When the Labor Party were last in government and employment growth was 0.7 per cent and unemployment was at 5.7 per cent, I didn't hear Labor members criticising their own government. They are trying to rewrite history. We know the Labor Party are replete with people who write books about themselves. They're absolutely replete with former members who get a kick out of writing about themselves and genuflecting to the Labor Party. Not one of them apply the same test—

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Malcolm's is coming out soon. He's got a few pages about you.

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's probably the only contribution that's been correct from the shadow Treasurer today. None of them will criticise their own government for the tests that they set that they could not meet. That's why they have no credibility on economic issues.

In the end, I say to the shadow Treasurer on the big battle that they are no doubt having within their party between those who believe that $387 billion of taxes was the right way to go and those who believe, 'Actually, maybe we should listen to the Australian people,' that we know who's going to win. The shadow housing minister outlined it this week. They want to hold onto the taxes. And why do they want to hold onto the taxes? It's because they cannot control their spending. If you cannot control your spending, you have to reach further and deeper into the pockets of Australians. And that's what we won't do.

We've seen $24 billion of tax refunds flow into the economy in the last 12 to 14 weeks. We believe that $24 billion of tax cuts and refunds are better in the pockets of Australians, rather than Labor politicians deciding how it can be spent. We saw from that lamentable period when they were in government, when they took Howard's $70 billion in the bank and turned it into $240 billion of debt, that there's no crazy spending idea they won't go for. Whether it's pink batts or school halls or cash for clunkers, there's no crazy scheme they will not fall for. We are very different, and we have credibility on these issues. So I suggest the opposition put somebody up with credibility, in future, on an MPI on the economy.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you ever want an example of this third-term seven-year government not having an economic plan, you just saw it. They just spent 10 minutes of the minister's contribution talking about Labor, completely and utterly unable to talk about the things that they should be doing. And as the shadow Treasurer pointed out, this third-term government that is now in its seventh year is presiding over an incredibly sluggish economy. Economic growth is at its lowest levels since the global financial crisis. The RBA, the IMF and the OECD have all downgraded their forecasts for Australia's economic growth.

We didn't hear the minister talking about that. The RBA has cut interest rates three times now to record lows, and they are at one-quarter of the emergency lows during the global financial crisis. I could go on. We know that people are struggling with their living standards, that their living standards are going backwards, because under this government wage growth has been stagnant. That is what's happening across the economy. So there's no plan for the economy at all. If you want an example of that, you just heard it from one of the ministers of this government. All he can talk about is Labor. All he can do is relitigate the election they won—now six months ago. That is all they can do, because they do not have a plan to turn this economy around.

What is your plan for wages growth? What is your plan to lift productivity across this country? The problem is, we have presiding over this government someone who is more focused on the next headline and getting the next front page of a newspaper than they are on managing this economy. They're not managing the economy in the interests of working Australians. They don't have a plan to turn the economy around. I suspect it's because they just don't care about working Australians. That is what we're seeing writ large from this government.

I particularly want to focus on the area that I have responsibility for, which is the area of infrastructure and transport. We know that over the first five budgets of this government they underdelivered, overpromised and underspent to the tune of $5 billion. That's money that they said they were going to inject into the economy to build infrastructure across the country that they did not deliver on. And we see, time and again, projects being delayed, funding being pushed out well into the never-never—big claims, big headlines: 'Look at what we're doing, we're busting congestion all over the country; we're doing this, we're doing that.' But when you look at the delivery and what they've actually done, there are some very big problems.

This economy deserves better. Time and again, the Reserve Bank governor, the Master Builders Association and industry groups have said, 'You need to spend money on infrastructure and, particularly, across the economy in our regions, because that is where there is capacity for that.' But with an underspend of $5 billion, what did we see? We saw six months of inaction, and finally the government said, 'We're going to bring a bit forward.' But if you look at the detail of what they've brought forward, it's not the $5 billion they've already underspent. It's a fraction of that. Then, if you look at the detail of what they are actually going to spend in the next three to four years and what they are actually going to spend today, most of it is, again, in the next three to four years—and on the never-never—not in the immediate vicinity the economy actually needs. I want to ask the government to specifically say what they are actually going to be spending in the member for Gilmore's electorate on the Princes Highway in the next six months. We know what that figure is. I want the government to actually come clean with the people of Gilmore about what that figure actually is. I want to know what they're going to be spending on the Newell Highway in the next six months, which spans the Deputy Prime Minister's electorate. They've talked a big game on this area, but they've not delivered.

They've got the minister for urban infrastructure out there saying, 'We're actually delivering on this Urban Congestion Fund now.' Well, he's certainly delivered—$17 million worth of advertising—but we have yet to see construction, actual construction, start on a project. There has been lots of talk. He's promised that there's going to be construction underway by Christmas—not planning, not design work, but construction underway by Christmas. By my count he's got about three and a bit weeks to actually get on with it and get those diggers out there. So far we've seen no evidence of that plan and no evidence of a plan for the economy.

Julian Simmonds (Ryan, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a pleasure to speak on this MPI because it gives me an opportunity to reinforce for Australians and for the residents of Ryan just how important it is that we stick with the Morrison government's stable and certain economic plan. What you have just heard from Labor members opposite is the same thing they say every time, which is talking down the Australian economy time and time again and the politics of economic panic. That is what the Labor members want to foster—a climate of economic panic. Why? Because they think it will move them on from the last election result, so they can ignore the last election result and not learn any lessons from it and get back to their tax-and-spend agenda. That's why they're still holding onto Labor's economic plan of $387 billion worth of new taxes, because they hope that, if they hang on to it long enough—if they hang on by their fingernails, knuckles going white—somehow the Australian people will forget how much and how far they wanted to reach into their pocket, and that the tide will turn. Well, the simple fact is, it won't.

The Australian people understand how much they need the Morrison government's stable and certain economic plan now. Every time the Labor Party get in, they wreck the joint. They absolutely wreck the budget. We've seen it time and time again. They inherited a surplus last time they came into government, and they racked up $240 billion in deficits over six years. It is extraordinary stuff, superhuman stuff to achieve that kind of turnaround in economic performance in such a short period of time. I was four years old last time Labor managed to deliver a surplus—four! That is their economic record, because they have never found a problem that they can't tax and spend their way out of, and that's in sharp contrast to the Morrison government—$387 billion worth of taxes is Labor's economic plan. On their economic plan—taxes on retirees, housing, income, investments, family businesses, electricity and cars—the Australian people have already had their say. In contrast, the Morrison government has a stable and certain economic plan.

I was just sitting here during question time jotting away how comprehensive this economic plan is: a budget back in black so that we can start to pay down the debt. Employment growth is three times what we inherited from Labor. We have 5.3 per cent unemployment, down from 5.7 per cent under Labor. The shadow Treasurer should be listening, because I know he loves stats. Well, here's a few stats that he's no doubt finding it hard to hear: 1.4 million jobs created under this government; real wage growth compared to real wage decrease under the Labor members opposite; and tax cuts for 10 million Australians—Australian families now have more money in their pocket to look after and support their families and make the decisions about their family and their family spending that they want to make, not that the Labor Party want to make, not that the shadow Treasurer wants to make on their behalf, but that Australian families want to make on their own behalf. And there are free trade agreements which will account for 80 per cent of our trade by 2020, $100 billion in our infrastructure pipeline, a fully funded NDIS, a 60 per cent increase in school funding, record funding for hospitals, funding for 80,000 new apprenticeships, 10,000 new home care packages, on average a new medicine on the PBS every day—and what an achievement that is after the Labor Party, the Labor members opposite, had to stop listing life-saving medicines on the PBS because fiscal circumstances wouldn't allow it.

I could go on and on, but I just wanted to give the chamber a bit of a flavour—that when the shadow Treasurer stands in this place and claims that we need an economic plan what he's really saying is that he wants Australians to have Labor's economic plan—the tax-and-spend plan—as opposed to the Morrison government's plan, which is clearly yielding results, creating jobs, creating higher real wage growth than the Labor Party ever managed to do, and putting more choice in the pockets of everyday Australian families. Australians can trust this government with the economic security of our country, and they can't trust the tax-and-spend Labor members.

Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, it's lovely to see how the coalition rolls out the heavyweights when there's an economic debate! The fact of the matter is this. When Australian families are out shopping for presents this Christmas they're going to have less money in their pockets than they did six years ago, because real household income is lower now than it was in 2013. And whether you're an average family in Western Sydney or in the Illawarra, you've got less money to go around at Christmas time this year than you did in 2013. Australians are coming home from work with less money in their wallets because wages and wages growth are at their lowest rate on record. Businesses are feeling the pressure as well. The shop owners you go and speak to are going to be telling you that they're feeling the pressure because retail sales are down. No money in your pocket means no money in the till.

These guys just don't seem to get it. The Prime Minister and the Treasurer love to talk about global headwinds, as if the cause of all of these problems is somehow somewhere else, not to be blamed on them. But the last budget update, on 2 December, showed the lie in this, because all our problems are home grown, because the government does not have a plan. They didn't expect to win an election, and they don't have a plan to govern the country. There is record demand and record prices for our commodities. The rest of the world wants the stuff that we've got to sell, but still we can't manage to get ahead.

When you raise these problems with the Prime Minister, the glass jaw shatters, as we saw in question time today. There is a very good reason that he refers to quiet Australians. When he refers to quiet Australians, it's a direction, not a description. It's a direction to Australians to be quiet and stop complaining about robodebt. It's a direction to Australians to be quiet and stop complaining about the government's woeful record on implementation of the banking royal commission's recommendations to the government. As we go to Christmas, fewer than six of the 76 recommendations from the Hayne royal commission have been implemented, and the member for Hume—more gates after his name than the average cattle yard—is still a protected species, still holds a position on the frontbench. They like to talk about their great achievement in balancing the budget, but here on National Disability Day we've got to bell the cat: $4.6 billion ripped out of the National Disability Insurance Scheme at the same time that people with disabilities can't get the care that they're after or can't get a wheelchair that they need to get out of the house. It's an absolute shame.

The government campaigned for six months about protecting retirees. Obviously they meant only some retirees, because if you're a retiree from an immigrant background and you want to go home and visit your family back overseas, they're cutting your pension. And they voted for it. They voted for $180 million ripped out of the pension system. Their present to Australians from an immigrant background this Christmas is a pension cut. And they voted for it.

If we are going to have a plan to get us out of these economic woes, we need a plan to deal with productivity. And do you think we saw one? They spent all of last week on a union-busting bill, but they haven't got a plan to deal with productivity in this country. Here's a tip: how about you focus on that 70 per cent of the workforce and that 70 per cent of economic activity which is the services economy? You haven't got a plan for that. A good plan might be able to do something to encourage business investment and small and medium enterprises, but, with no plan for that, business confidence is going backwards. While you're dealing with that, how about a plan for broadband? We know that, if you're going to run a services economy, you need decent broadband, and all you've done is stuff the only plan going.

A modern economy is driven on services and electricity. These guys have had five years to deliver an energy plan and they still can't make their mind up on something. So we won't be copping a lecture, and Australians will see right through this Prime Minister with a glass jaw as they go into Christmas. There's less money in their pockets and there's no plan to pull them out of the problems next year. All they've got is a Prime Minister with a glass jaw who seems to want to evade every piece of scrutiny.

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Nothing gives me a better feeling about the likely outcome of the next election than when the Labor Party want to talk about the economy and economic management. I have to say one of the great honours as a member of parliament was that my first vote in this chamber was to cut income taxes for working Australians, because I'm from a party that fundamentally understands that the Australian people are much better at spending their money than the government is and the more dollars we can put back in the pockets of Australian businesses and Australian families the better. The Labor Party had a completely different approach. It was absolutely rejected at the May election, and I'm very proud to be a part of a government that is reducing costs on businesses and families so that they can spend their money growing our economy.

We of course have a very solid economic plan for this country. It involves cutting taxes. It involves investing in infrastructure. It involves investing in skills and investing in understanding what the future industries are, growing our exports so that the economic pie increases particularly in the private sector of our economy, because that's where the jobs can be created that are sustainable and that will underpin our economic prosperity into the future. We're spending $100 billion on infrastructure over the next 10 years. That's productive infrastructure that is going to contribute to economic growth not just through the mere fact of spending the money and the jobs that that creates but also through the fact that it increases the productivity of our country and our economy.

In my own electorate, happily, we're spending almost $200 million of that money over the next four years alone. That is going to provide major productivity upgrades in my electorate of Sturt. The Portrush Road-Magill Road intersection and the Glen Osmond Road-Cross Road intersection are going to get families and workers to their jobs and, more importantly, homes quicker and safer. They are quality-of-life improvements but also productivity improvements. Every minute less spent in the car on the way to work is a productivity gain for our economy.

We're also, of course, undertaking a spectacular investment in Defence in my home state of South Australia. Obviously, the defence of our nation is fundamentally important, but we're also ensuring that we have a defence industry and that we're producing the assets, the capability and the sustainability that our Defence Force needs here in this country. We are spending that money—$90 billion just in the two shipbuilding programs in South Australia for frigates and submarines. That is $90 billion being spent in the Australian economy to build frigates and submarines for our Navy and to create jobs—high-quality, high-technology, future industrial jobs underpinning the industrial capability of the South Australian economy.

Also very important, particularly given the economic results today around our current account surplus—you weren't able to say in this country in my lifetime until very recently that we have a current account surplus, which is underpinned by a massive trade surplus since, thanks to this government's policies on free trade agreements and backing our exporters, we are exporting more than we're importing. We have free trade agreements with 70 per cent of the markets that we trade with. That's providing enormous opportunity and growth for export businesses. John Key, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, had a great saying: 'We're not going to get rich selling lattes to each other.' We've got to produce things and sell them to other economies—not just goods but services as well. In my home state, like the whole country, international student numbers are growing rapidly.

We've got free trade agreements that are facilitating the increase in exports of major commodities, particularly out of my state of South Australia, like wine and beef and grain. These are sectors that have been around for a long time. Then we've got emerging sectors like the Space Agency that's being developed in my home state, which will have jobs that don't exist right now. That will be there in the future. We're going to have exponential growth in the space sector which will provide so much productivity gain for our economy.

The Morrison government has a very proud policy agenda: to continue to grow our economy well into the future. The alternative is dramatically increasing taxes on Australian businesses and families. That's no way to grow an economy. That will do the absolute opposite. We've had 28 years of economic growth in this country. You've got to go back to the 17th century—the Netherlands, I think it was, and the tulip boom—to find any— (Time expired)

Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think it's fair to observe that there's a substantial gulf between not panicking and being completely comatose. There's substantial room for action between not panicking—which we're being told the government is not doing every day—and just lying face down in the dirt. You can describe lying face down in the dirt, dead to the world, as 'not panicking' all you like. But the casual observer can see it for what it is. They can see that it's this government doing absolutely nothing.

We've heard two extraordinary contributions. The member for Ryan said that this side of parliament was ignoring the recent election. You won the election. You are the government. Governments do things, governments have plans and governments implement plans. The member for Sturt even went one step further. Don't worry; he's not worrying about what happened at the last election. According to the member for Sturt they've already won the next election. They're not doing anything now, and there's no need to do anything between now and then because that one is in the bag.

The government are doing absolutely nothing in the face of serious economic challenges and big economic problems that are hurting ordinary Australian households and businesses: the worst wages growth on record, the weakest economic conditions since the GFC, the highest level of household debt and nearly two million Australians are either looking for work or looking for more work. That means that Australian households are worse off than when this government were elected. Household living standards have declined. It means people have less. It means that confidence is shot. People are worried. They're struggling to pay for essentials, and they can't afford to consider anything else. So consumption in the economy—the largest part of our economy: people buying and selling goods and services—is thoroughly depressed. That hurts local shops and tradespeople. It means people don't take holidays and they don't contribute to the vital tourism economy. Don't worry, because the government are resolutely not panicking. They're doing nothing. They've doubled the debt. Before they were elected they campaigned on what they called a 'debt emergency', but they're not panicking. And they've done nothing because they don't have an economic plan.

They do have some riding instructions. They've got some marching orders. I'm not quite sure where they come from. It could be the IPA, the BCA or any number of state Young Liberals conferences. But they've got some riding instructions. If all we ever did was tag this lot for doing nothing, they would be getting off lightly, because they've done a few things. They've taken away penalty rates for low-paid Australians and they are monomaniacal about attacking Australian unions. So far, since they were elected—the election they've already forgotten as they look towards the election they already assume they're going to win—they have taken away penalty rates for low-paid Australians and they have continued their attack on Australian unions. If you turned those two things around, you'd have the beginning of an economic plan. If you wanted to do something for this economy you could start by giving penalty rates back to low-paid Australians and you could allow Australian unions to do their work, which is to prosecute the case for the broad social and economic wellbeing of Australian households.

The reality is that the circumstances and the human impacts of our economic situation are harder to take, precisely because this government is not seizing on the basic elements of an economic plan. We could offer that up to them in a gesture at this time of year as we look towards Christmas. Do something about productivity, for God's sake. Stop the war on education and training. Fix the NBN. Lift Newstart. Put some money into the pockets of the poorest Australians, which would flow into the economy and deal with the crisis of confidence and the depressed consumption in our economy. Develop a national energy policy. Follow the RBA's advice. If you boil the RBA's advice down to a simple statement, it is, as John Kennedy once said, 'do something'. For God's sake, do something.

You're not panicking; you're lying facedown in the leaves as the Australian economy grows weaker by the day and Australian households and Australian businesses suffer the consequences. This economy is in trouble. The government does not have an economic plan, and they're resolutely not panicking. They're standing there, arms crossed and fingers in their ears, while things get tougher and more bleak for Australian households. It is a crying shame. It is an indictment on all of those who are sitting opposite. You've been given a great trust by the Australian people. You should respond to that. You should get on with doing something for this economy.

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Fremantle for his five-minute diatribe on talking down the Australian economy. I might remind the people on the other side that we have delivered a growing economy and we have increased the pie, and that's why we've been able to balance our budget. We have the lowest number of people relying on income support, and we have 1.4 million people in jobs that weren't there before. We have grown the pie.

Rather than complaining and thinking that taxing your way to prosperity will ever occur, I need to remind the people on the other side in the Labor Party that they promised $387 billion of extra taxes—whether it was attacking people's investment in their investment properties by getting rid of negative gearing, attacking people's franking credits, changing super taxes or putting extra taxes on family business structures. They wanted to have regulations that would make the average car much more expensive, and the list goes on and on and on.

We have 1.4 million jobs that weren't there before. We have grown the pie. We have cut taxes, and cutting taxes—the income tax cuts as well as the small business company tax cuts that we've put through—means we have had more income. The biggest increase in income for the budget was out of company taxes. But we have cut the taxes. We've also had other tax initiatives, like the instant asset write-off. We've increased the scope of small businesses to up to $50 million of turnover so that they can get a better return on their investment. We were driving productivity changes by getting rid of unproductive union behaviour through the ensuring integrity bill, both in construction and in building schools, highways and roads. That would've raised productivity, but the other side knocked it out in the Senate.

Employment grew by two per cent. As I mentioned, we have the highest participation rate in many, many decades—66 per cent. The wage price index has grown by 2.2 per cent, greater than inflation. We've done this all at the same time as increasing spending on health and education. We've rolled out the NBN, and we have brought in electricity market reforms so that a lot of the rip-offs that the retailers were doing are canned. There are default market offers that are being established, which will give people the opportunity to change their plan and save money.

In the local, regional economy where I live, we have put significant investment into critical projects like the Forster Civic Precinct—a $6 million investment two years ago that has triggered an $80 million project in Forster. Cranes are across Forster, and many tradesman, all local, are working on a fantastic civic precinct development, followed by an aged and seniors living complex down on the waterfront. You have to see the extra jobs that have come out of the seeding of extra investment in an existing small business with a $2 million North Coast jobs and investment plan that promises up to 200 extra jobs in those businesses that were recipients of it. We have improved roads and bridges across the whole Lyne electorate. We have investments coming in Dungog: the Clarence Town bridge and Clarence Town Road. It's an absolute necessity that freight and safety be delivered through our road infrastructure.

We have the Inland Rail happening as well, $9.8 billion. I outlined all the investments in rail infrastructure across the nation. These are the infrastructure spends that we need to get an efficient trade set-up. We have free trade agreements, but we need to get our products to the ports cheaply and quickly. That's what the Inland Rail will do. It will also take a lot of freight movement off the highways in the tourism strip up the North Coast, all those B-doubles. Every train that goes up the Inland Rail will take 110 B-doubles off the freeway system. It will make it much safer and much more efficient.

The tax cuts are part of our plan. We're going to continue dropping taxes over the next couple of years for small businesses. The low income tax offset, up to $2,060 for couples, has been— (Time expired)

Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Liberals are now in their seventh year in government. The economy is floundering, locals in my electorate of Dunkley are struggling and the government has no plan to turn anything around. Australia's economy is growing at its slowest pace since the global financial crisis, which those on the other side of the chamber seem to want to pretend never occurred. They pretend that Labor didn't steer us through it, but we know that we did. Wages have stagnated. Almost two million Australians are looking for work or for more work. If you want to meet some of those Australians, come to Frankston and speak to some real workers who are struggling to look after their families. Living standards and productivity are going backwards. It seems that weak growth and failing confidence are the price we pay for a government which has a political strategy—smear and slur—but no plan for our economy. One fact stands out above all others: real household median income, the measure that is most commonly used to talk about and assess overall living standards, is lower today than it was in 2013. What an abysmal policy failure!

The Prime Minister and the Treasurer have a populist political strategy. They like to come into this chamber and do a lot of yelling, but what do they have that resembles an economic plan for the people in my community who come to my office to ask for help to buy food to put on the table for their children? What do they have for people in my electorate? Nothing. They won an election without any policies. They've had six months since that election to do something and they haven't done anything to have a comprehensive economic plan. We need a plan to turn the economy around and we need it now.

The Reserve Bank have told us that they can't do all the heavy lifting. The RBA, the IMF and the OECD have all downgraded their forecasts for Australia's economic growth, but this Liberal government has chosen to ignore all of these warnings from economists. You don't have to listen to Labor if you don't want to—it seems your ears are blocked—but listen to the economists and listen to the experts. Oh, that's right; experts aren't very popular over there at the moment! This government stubbornly refuses to act, but it's time to act. Use MYEFO. Don't just update forecasts; outline an economic plan. Here are some options. Genuinely bring forward infrastructure projects. In my electorate the government promised the electrification of Baxter at the last election. They put out flyers saying that they were going to build it. That wasn't mentioned in Morrison's recent 'great infrastructure announcement adventure' around the country. Put your money where your mouth is and fund it. Bring forward stage 2 of the tax cuts and boost our middle class. Better yet, from a stimulus perspective—and a social justice perspective—increase Newstart to kickstart retail. Help people to be able to afford to live while they're looking for work. And how about you have a plan, a real plan, to boost wages rather than returning to Work Choices.

Just while I'm talking about IR, how many times in the last few weeks have we heard government ministers at the dispatch box, trying to claim credit for the Fair Work Commission increasing the minimum wage, despite the Liberal government putting in submissions saying it shouldn't be increased? And yet, when we mention the cuts to penalty rates, they say, 'No, the Fair Work Commission is independent; we're not responsible for that.' This Liberal government couldn't possibly come into this place and do its job and vote for legislation that would restore penalty rates. You want to take credit for something the Fair Work Commission does, but you just walk away and won't restore penalty rates, saying, 'They're independent.' What hypocrites.

Finally, if you want to do something as part of an economic plan that will actually achieve something, take some action on climate change. Have a real national energy policy. Support job creation in renewable energy and the jobs of the future. I think the last Liberal who said the word 'innovation' was Malcolm Turnbull. How about, government, investing in innovation? Stop cutting funds to the CSIRO. Stop attacking scientists. Stop ignoring the jobs of the future. Invest in our community— (Time expired)

Gladys Liu (Chisholm, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker Hogan, for the opportunity to speak about the great work done by the Prime Minister and his team when it comes to our economy. Australians know that a coalition government is the only government that can be trusted with our nation's economy.

The coalition government is supporting the hardworking Australians that are the backbone of our economy. The Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the rest of the team on this side of the House have worked hard to deliver tax relief to those Australians who are having a go. Our tax relief measures will support stronger consumption growth and stronger economic growth. This government has provided immediate tax relief to lower income and middle-income earners.

In the last financial year, these hardworking Australians received tax relief of up to $1,080, and, as of today, over 12.8 million Australians have lodged their tax return and received this relief. This tax relief gives hardworking Australians money in their pockets to pay their bills, invest in their future or save. In 2022-23, the government will increase the top threshold of the 19 per cent tax bracket from $37,000 to $45,000. We are also increasing the low-income tax offset from $445 to $700. This tax relief is possible for only one reason, and that is the coalition government knows how to manage the budget. We have discipline when it comes to fiscal management, unlike those on the other side. Our government's budget will provide an extra $158 billion in tax relief over the next 11 years simply because we do not waste money like Labor.

Prior to coming into this House, I was a small business owner, and I know the difficulties and the uncertainties that they face. Running a small business is tough and, quite frankly, something the member for Rankin knows nothing about. The coalition government has always been on the side of small and medium-sized businesses. We know that these businesses drive job creation in Australia, and that is why we will always back them. Businesses with an annual turnover of less than $50 million employ around 7.7 million workers, and they need our support. We are backing these businesses. We are lowering their taxes so that they can reinvest in their business and continue to grow. Our government has expanded access to the instant asset write-off, which will see an immediate impact to Australian businesses.

This side of the House knows Australia's recent productivity performance is better than that of any G7 country and higher than the OECD average. However, like all developed economies, Australia faces challenges when it comes to productivity growth. That is why this government has set a plan to help the economy continue to grow. We do have plans. This government will create more jobs and deliver lower taxes. We will continue to reform company tax, which will encourage more and more business investment into our economy.

There is a lot to celebrate when it comes to our economy. For example, Australia has completed its 28th consecutive year of economic growth. We did this despite ongoing trade tensions, a housing market downturn and of course the weather conditions that our rural sector continues to face. Australians made it very clear at the last election that they do not want Labor's economy-wrecking, high-tax agenda. I'm proud to be a part of a government that is always on the side of Australians.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The discussion has concluded.