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

I rise to speak in favour of the motion and in favour of the amendments that have been circulated in my name, which I formally move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes the 2020–21 budget:

(1) will deliver a decade of deficits and accrue one trillion dollars of debt;

(2) spends $98 billion on unemployment, but keeps unemployment too high for too long;

(3) continues to leave too many Australians behind without support;

(4) fails to address key policy areas such as childcare, aged care and social housing;

(5) prioritises the funnelling of billions of taxpayers' dollars into funds for the Coalition Government to rort and pork barrel at the expense of hard-working Australians; and

(6) fails to outline a vision for the country".

I want to direct my remarks today to a group of Australians that our opponents used to talk about almost incessantly. Robert Menzies called them 'the forgotten people'. It was his phrase for Australia's middle class, the people who work hard to raise a family, put a roof over their heads and help build their communities. If the government's budget tells us anything, it's that today, in 2020, the Liberals have forgotten about 'the forgotten people'.

Indeed, the political amnesia was in effect well before the worst bushfires in recorded history, and an unexpected crisis brought about by a once-in-a-century pandemic. In the Liberals' seven years in power, the Australian economy never achieved trend growth. Wages stagnated across the board, from bakers to bank tellers, yet the cost of everything that's important to small business and hardworking Australian families went up. Power prices soared. The cost of child care soared, especially the parents who wanted to go back to work full time. Apprenticeships and traineeships dried up—ditto full-time work, as casualisation climbed and climbed again. Getting a university degree increasingly left young professionals saddled with spiralling debts. Business investment and new business registrations were both at historic lows. Even the Reserve Bank was pleading with the government to do more to kickstart the economy—but all for nought. On top of all of this, this government has managed to devastate the relationship with our most important trading partner.

There are none so blind as those who refuse to see, and so it is with our coalition opponents. Blinded by their obsessive self-image, they somehow saw themselves as the champions of aspiration, despite the data and the chorus of calls to change course. That economic neglect and political narcissism was always going to be exposed in a moment of crisis, and, unfortunately for millions of Australians, that is precisely what has come to pass.

As families and business owners battled during unprecedented bushfires to save the homes and livelihoods they'd worked so hard to build, the Prime Minister was on a beach in Hawaii. And while volunteers rallied with hoses and fire trucks to fight the flames, coalition MPs took pot shots at climate science and spread ridiculous conspiracy theories about arsonists. As it turned out, this was a desperately needed reality check. It shattered the Prime Minister's false vanity, and just as well.

When coronavirus hit, he was ill-equipped and needed Labor to show him the way forward. Labor saw wage subsidies as the seawall that Australians needed to protect them against the oncoming economic tsunami. We proposed it. He rejected it. And then he capitulated. But, as usual, when he did, the important details eluded him. After presiding over the greatest expansion of casualisation in the workforce this country has ever seen, the Prime Minister left casuals behind in his JobKeeper plan, and, after decades of Labor arguing that trickle-down economics was a hoax, it took a pandemic for the Prime Minister to realise the truths in our arguments.

Increasing unemployment benefits via the JobSeeker payment was a breakthrough moment for Australia. It was the moment they accepted the fact that not only is it morally the right thing to do but also it is economically responsible to build economic demand. For a precious moment, even the Treasurer argued that low-income people spent every dollar they got while high income earners tended to save it. But, as with so much, their heart was simply not in it. So, even now, as unemployment is going up, support for the unemployed is going down.

But that wasn't the only home truth the pandemic taught this government. Let's talk about child care. At the height of the pandemic, the coalition government got a rare insight into the critical role that child care plays in the Australian economy. As social restrictions were imposed, it became obvious that so many of our essential service workers could not do their jobs if they didn't have access to child care. We also got an insight into the precarious financial state of many of our childcare providers. Short-term support was provided, but, in an act of complete disdain for the workers, they cut the childcare workers off JobKeeper.

This experience should've shown the Morrison government once and for all that child care is a key plank in a modern economy where both parents have to work. The so-called party of aspiration has really only ever believed in the aspirations of half the population. We all remember Tony Abbott saying: 'Women should do all the ironing.'

The problem at the core of the coalition's approach to child care is that they see it as welfare. How else could they construct a budget that champions a $27 billion tax break for investment in businesses and see that as an economic measure, but see a $6 billion initiative to expand the availability of child care as welfare? Both measures are essential to moving the economy along, to growing aspiration and to growing participation.

When the government was scrambling for ways to help small and medium businesses to face the onslaught, again they looked back to Labor policies. Remember this: it was the former Treasurer Wayne Swan who introduced the instant asset write-off. They opposed it. They voted against it. And they dismantled it. It's our policy and we're proud of it—because we are a party of small business. Tradies, cafe owners, hairdressers and myriad other business owners know they can rely on policies to get the details of these issues right—and so can all of those frontline workers against this invisible enemy. Labor immediately saw that nurses, aged-care workers and allied health staff were in great danger as COVID-19 spread. We saw the agonising choice that they faced, especially the army of casual workers in the healthcare sector, between quarantining at home without an income and going to work and risking infection. Pandemic leave could and should have been one of the first things the government did to protect not only healthcare workers but also the vulnerable clients they serve. To this government's eternal shame, it took months before it was rolled out.

For us, there was something about the way the government handled this crisis that never completely rang true. We talk a lot about vision in this place, so much so that sometimes people forget what it really means. The government has never really had a vision to support what it did with the pandemic. The grim economic realities of this pandemic open their eyes ever so briefly, but all too soon they looked away again. An unfortunate reality is laid bare in this Treasurer's budget. I opened my remarks by reflecting on the statement of Robert Menzies and his 'forgotten Australians'. Let me now say that Australia's aspirational classes have never been forgotten by Labor. Those who strive to get their own home, get their kids into a career, build a business and get involved with their local community aren't some political theory or label. They are our neighbours, our classmates, our parents. But there is a forgotten class in Australia, there is a forgotten group of Australians: those in insecure work; those who sleep rough on our streets at night; those who don't have a home or a permanent residence; those who lives of quiet desperation in social housing or in underfunded nursing homes; middle-aged workers who find themselves on the scrapheap, with a desire and ability to give more but without the opportunity. Why is it that the Liberals don't afford these people the gift of aspiration? Why is it that they are the new forgotten generation? Why are they never counted by those opposite as a source of this country's economic recovery rather than the brake that they so patently believed to be the case? When I talk about their lack of vision, that's the blind spot that this budget reveals.

I return again to child care. Marginal tax rates can be as high as 70 and 90 cents in the dollar for working families where mum wants to work five days a week, or dad. Yet there is nothing in this budget to address that. When the economic lightning hit the proverbial dunny in March, the government saw how vital a role child care plays in sustaining the economy. But now it's only Labor's vision that sees aspiration by parents to work full time to get ahead even as they raise a family. It's only Labor that sees that tax cuts that get swallowed up by childcare fees are going to help nobody. It's only Labor that sees how middle-aged workers are some of our nation's most productive and valuable contributors and deserve a leg up as much as anybody else. It's only Labor that sees lowering power prices by rewiring the nation as the best way to get government back on its feet. These things should be no-brainers for a government of true vision. With these omissions, this government condemns the Liberals for leaving behind the very people they claim to represent. But, worse than that, it also leaves behind those that the Liberals have never really cared about, those that they dismiss as leaners.

Those opposite haven't learnt the lesson of how important a properly functioning aged-care sector is, even with the recent evidence staring them in the face. They've forgotten the dignity written on the faces of rough sleepers after just a few nights in proper accommodation and how that experience uplifted us all, and they're simply blind to the dreams of those who live in social housing and want hope for themselves and their family. Those opposite will never understand why a single mother on disability support, living in a housing commission flat, has every right to expect that her son might go to university and enter a profession, start a business and create jobs or lead a political party with a real vision for the future. They will never understand that the price of these inadequacies is measured not just in the missed opportunities but in cold, hard cash.

We look on in amazement that a government could rack up a debt which is galloping towards $1.7 trillion but leave nothing behind as a legacy for future generations, who are going to be paying off that debt. Where is the big vision? Where is the big infrastructure project? Where is the structural or the social reform? It's simply not there. It's the biggest budget deficit since World War II, in absolute terms and as a percentage of GDP, with government debt galloping towards $1.7 trillion. Australians deserve better than this. They deserve much, much more, and they'll get it at the next election.

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

I thank the member. Is the amendment seconded?

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

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

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this, the honourable member for Whitlam has moved as an amendment that all words after 'that' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. If it suits the House, I will state the question in the form that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question. I give the call to the member for Bass.

Bridget Archer (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It certainly felt like an historic moment, watching the Treasurer hand down the budget earlier this month. As I mentioned to a room full of northern Tasmanian business owners and employees the morning after the budget, when I was elected last year I certainly didn't imagine we would be facing the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression. It's an unenviable position to be in, as a nation, but it's one that we, as a government, are able to respond to because of our economic strength prior to the pandemic reaching Australia's shores. As the Treasurer said on budget night:

We could do this because we entered this crisis from a position of economic strength, brought the Budget back to balance for the first time in 11 years and maintained our AAA credit rating.

This gave us the fiscal firepower when we needed it most.

The decisions made by the Morrison government when the pandemic first hit were made quickly and decisively to protect the health of all Australians while trying to balance the devastating economic impact that this unprecedented crisis would bring.

In my electorate of Bass we are proudly an innovative and entrepreneurial city, with around 83 per cent of Launceston's workforce employed in the private sector, compared to 76 per cent in Hobart. Our government's JobKeeper payment has supported 3,100 businesses in our region, supporting them through the pandemic and keeping them connected to their employees. Businesses such as the Tailrace Centre, Seahorse World and Flinders Island Aviation and many other businesses, from local fish and chip shops to a software development company, have all relied on this critical support to see them through.

Our support for small and medium-sized businesses did not stop there. A few thousand businesses have received the cash flow boost to help them stay afloat, and, to support new investment and increase business cash flow, the government is providing a temporary tax incentive that will allow for thousands of businesses in my region to write off the full value of any eligible asset that they purchase. From tractors, trucks and cars to office equipment, this tax relief will unlock investment, expand the productive capacity of our nation and create tens of thousands of jobs.

Our government's push to revitalise our manufacturing industries across the country will see $52.8 million offered to local companies through the Manufacturing Modernisation Fund. This will be targeted in six priority areas: food and beverage manufacturing, medical products, clean energy and recycling and defence. George Town, my home town, is a proud manufacturing town with businesses like Environex, where I was pleased to take the Assistant Minister for Waste Reduction and Environmental Management in a pre-COVID era. I'm hopeful of seeing companies like Environex, who create new products from plastics such as IV bags from hospitals and silage wrap, benefit from initiatives such as this. The focus on recycling has been welcomed by the Tasmanian Minerals, Manufacturing and Energy Council, who said the investment and focus in this key area will build on the state's manufacturing prowess and align with the culture of 'reducing our impact', further stating that the council welcomes the government's budget announcement 'as an opportunity to improve our social licence and look after the land we're on'.

Our plan will rebuild our economy and create jobs. Tasmania, like all states, has suffered economically since the pandemic began. However, as Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chief Executive Michael Bailey said after the budget was handed down, the job-creating infrastructure investment and tax cuts contained in the budget was what the state's struggling economy required. The federal budget was a win for small business in our community and the JobMaker Hiring Credit is already instilling confidence in the Northern Tasmanian business industry. Vision Hotels' Director Brendon Deeley told media that he was already discussing hiring new staff under the initiative. He said:

It will enable us to certainly bring on multiple staff, there's no question. So, if that's just us that are already, at a quick glimpse, talking about bringing more staff on because of this budget, I think there will be a whole bunch of employers.

Another hospitality owner, Karen Burbury, said that the initiative would be beneficial. She stated that she found it:

… exceptionally comforting to know that we can employ people from JobSeeker and have that subsidy in place. This is the budget we needed to have.

Australian apprenticeships will play a vital role in developing and delivering the pipeline of skilled workers that businesses and industry need to support our economic recovery. Our government's committed to supporting industries and apprentices across the country. The CEO of KEEN Partners in Georgetown, which focuses on growing people with meaningful and rewarding employment, including though apprenticeships, said:

The Federal Budget has delivered a massive opportunity for employers and apprentices.

Under the scheme, we're providing for 100,000 new apprentices in the 2021 budget to support the next generation of our skilled workers and to help jobseekers get back into work, introducing a new 50 per cent wage subsidy for all businesses that take on apprentices over the period 5 October 2020 to 30 September 2021. The $1.2 billion Boosting Apprenticeship Commencements wage subsidy will support our next generation of skilled workers through 100,000 new apprenticeships. This measure is in addition to financial support already provided under the government's $2.8 billion Supporting Apprentices and Trainees package for existing apprentices and trainees, which is now expected to support 90,000 employers to keep 180,000 apprentices and trainees in employment and training.

Unsurprisingly, our $1.2 billion apprenticeship scheme has been given the thumbs up from business groups, with the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry CEO James Pearson saying the new subsidy should go a long way to turning around the concerning long-term decline in apprenticeship numbers. 'This is the right prescription to restore the health of the apprenticeship system,' he said. Master Builders Australia CEO Denita Warn said, 'Young people and building and construction business will be big winners.'

As of 31 March this year, there were more than 9,000 young Tasmanians in apprenticeship and trainee programs, an increase of 16.1 per cent from just four years prior. Our government's continued investment in this area is working. This package announced in the budget is significant and provides an incredible opportunity to gain a job-ready skillset in a range of industries: hospitality, tourism, agriculture, aged care, arts, graphic design, hair and beauty and, of course, our tradies. These are all industries, I might add, that employ men and women, which is why I was left somewhat bemused by claims from the other side that this budget was not for women.

There were a significant number of measures in this budget which specifically support women, and here is a quick reminder for those who may need it. To start, our 2020 Women's Economic Security Statement includes a wide range of measures to provide targeted support for women to explore pathways to improve their employment opportunities, pay, participation and flexibility. The $240.4 million package over five years is a vital step in creating more opportunities and choices for women, not just for the recovery from COVID-19 but for the generations ahead. The economic support statement supports women into jobs now and helps drive economic growth into the future.

Key budget initiatives include: expanding the Master Builders Australia's Women Building Australia program to support more women into the highly male dominated building and construction industry, expanding the innovative enterprising girls program to give girls and young women across Australia the skills and opportunities to start their own businesses in the digital economy. An additional $35.9 million will be invested in the existing Boosting Female Founders Initiative, to support up to 282 additional startups and 4,300 women entrepreneurs. As part of this ongoing support, we will link female founders up with expert mentoring and advice for women entrepreneurs. As a key measure in the 2018 economic statement, this initiative is already on track to support over 100 businesses to build their potential.

Women currently make up a minority in STEM education, workplaces and senior leadership positions, at only 17 per cent of the STEM qualified population. The 2020 women's economic statement provides more opportunity for women to move into rewarding and lucrative STEM careers by investing an additional $14.5 million to expand several women in STEM programs, including the women in STEM and entrepreneurship grants program, expansion of the girls in STEM Toolkit, extending the Women in STEM Ambassador role and creating new STEM industry cadetships and advanced apprenticeships specifically for women. This $25.1 million program will specifically provide 500 women valuable career experience and a salary while they study an industry relevant qualification in STEM.

The Morrison government are providing a range of measures to support families by extending the paid parental leave work test to 20 months, offering important financial support to parents who do not meet the current work test provisions because their employment has been affected by COVID-19. Additionally, in recognition of the challenges that disadvantaged families are facing as a result of COVID-19, we're investing an additional $24.7 million in the ParentsNext program. Disadvantaged jobseeking parents who are struggling to re-enter the workforce and support their families will be able to access streamlined and extended services to get the support that they need to re-enter the workforce. This will provide assistance to approximately 235,000 parents, including those in my northern Tasmanian community.

On a personal note, I'm incredibly proud of securing $5.4 million through this budget to move the family law court in Launceston, which has become increasingly unsafe for families to access their services and to the employees who work in the building. I'd like to thank the Attorney-General for working so closely with me to listen to my concerns and working to achieve a fantastic outcome. Additionally, as someone who has continuously advocated for increased access to mental health services, I am particularly pleased to see the doubling of the number of Medicare funded psychological services from 10 to 20.

This year the government has been committed to saving lives and livelihoods and this budget paves the way to rebuild the future of our region and our country, supporting Australians when they need it now and working together to build our country back even stronger.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] This is a budget that puts the millionaires ahead of the million unemployed. This budget is a trickle-down con job. Budgets are about choices and this budget has chosen to ignore the massive problems that Australia is facing at the moment and instead give $99 billion a year in handouts to big corporations and the super wealthy.

Just today we were told that we are facing a climate crisis of incredible proportions here in Australia, with the Bureau of Meteorology telling Senate estimates that on current trajectory, including this government's targets, we could see 4.4 degrees of warming in Australia during the lifetime of today's primary school students. That means creating a hell on earth in this country. We're facing a climate crisis. We're also facing an inequality crisis in this country. Inequality is at a 70-year high. You can work full time in this country but still be living in poverty, and that's because we have a third crisis in this country, which is a jobs crisis. Before the coronavirus pandemic even started, nearly one in three young people in this country either didn't have a job or didn't have enough hours of work. Of course, those numbers have gone up since the coronavirus hit.

In the face of the climate crisis, the inequality crisis and the jobs crisis, this budget could have been a green recovery, a Green New Deal, a plan of investment and action in industries that will tackle the climate crisis and make Australia a more equal and caring society—things like investing in free education, aged care, renewable energy. All of those things could have been done by the government in this budget and they would have addressed not just the economic recession we find ourselves in but the inequality crisis and the climate crisis as well. What has the government done? The government has done exactly the opposite. The government has made a choice to prolong this recession, to keep unemployment higher than it needs to be, to increase inequality in this country and to fast-track the climate crisis. In short, with this budget the government has chosen to make the problems that Australia is facing even worse. Why has it chosen to do that? Because this budget is a trickle-down con job written by the big corporations for the big corporations, who also happen to be Liberal Party and Labor Party donors. That's why the government, instead of directly investing to create jobs and provide the services people in this country need so that we can have a more equal society, are writing out huge blank cheques in this budget to their big corporate mates.

Let's look at some of the budget measures that were proposed by the government and waved through last week with the support of the Labor Party. One of them is giving big corporations a $27 billion blank cheque from taxpayers to spend as they like. The government say: 'Trust us. We'll give money to big corporations and let them make lots of purchases, and we'll hope that some of that wealth trickles down and finds its way into job creation.' The problem is that there are no strings attached to the money given out in this new tax break for the big corporations, many of whom are already profitable and in fact have increased their wealth during the course of this financial crisis. They could buy cheap computers from China. They could go out and buy office furniture from overseas. It could be something that will not create one new job, but it will give them a tax write-off. The Greens in the Senate said, 'If you're going to give this $27 billion blank cheque to big corporations, at least make sure it's Australian-made.' No, Liberal and Labor voted against that. We said, 'At least make sure it doesn't go into making the climate crisis worse.' No, Liberal and Labor voted against that. So in this budget we've got $27 billion in handouts going to the big corporations courtesy of Liberal and Labor.

We've also got from the government a scam of a scheme that is going to help McDonald's and others like it line their pockets to help subsidise wage costs. The bill we saw pass the parliament yesterday when the government wanted to bring it on and Labor said, 'You're not bringing it on quickly enough; let's pass it through,' will allow big corporations like McDonald's to employ young people at the minimum wage for 20 hours a week and get 200 bucks a week for it. Even companies that have been so profitable during the crisis that they've been able to pay dividends, even corporations that have underpaid and ripped off their workers—companies that have been engaging in wage theft—are going to get some of this $4 billion thanks to the legislation that was rushed through yesterday by the Liberals and Labor.

Then we come to the other centrepiece of this government's budget, again supported wholeheartedly by Labor—that is, giving tax cuts to millionaires. If you've managed to keep your job throughout this crisis and earn more than a million dollars a year, you don't need a tax cut. The priority should be the million people who are unemployed, not going into debt to give a tax cut to millionaires and the superwealthy, the likes of Clive Palmer. They don't need a tax cut, to be frank. We shouldn't be going into debt to give money to them. We should be looking after the million unemployed in this country not only by keeping JobSeeker where it is and making sure that they have got enough money to live on until the economy gets back on its feet again and jobs are available for everyone who wants one but also—instead of giving tax cuts to millionaires, as Liberals and Labor want—by using the money to invest directly in government services that will make Australia more equal and will create jobs directly.

In this budget, what's going to happen? Someone earning $1 million a year gets 2½ thousand bucks; someone who is among the working poor might get $250; and, if you're unemployed, you get a kick in the teeth. And what the establishment parties won't tell you about the tax cuts they fast-track through is that, if you're a middle-income earner, you only get them for one year; after that, they disappear. It's a one-year-only deal if you're on a middle income. But the millionaires keep getting the tax cuts forever, which keep getting bigger and bigger because the Liberals, with Labor's backing, have put the millionaires ahead of the million unemployed, because they are in the pockets of their corporate donors.

We know that this recession is hitting young people the hardest. It's hitting women hard and it's hitting young people hard. The jobs that young people worked in were the hardest hit by the coronavirus crisis, but the support that the government offered discriminated against young people, with a million casuals, many of whom were young, locked out of government support; and jobs in universities excluded from government support. Not only were young people in the industries that were hit the hardest; the government then deliberately turned its back on them. But it's going to get even worse, because many of those jobs that young people either had or the industries they were hoping to get into might take the longest to get back on their feet after the coronavirus recession, especially here in Victoria, when many of those jobs are in arts and entertainment, hospitality, retail and tourism, which might take a very long time to get back on their feet because the social-distancing restrictions will still be in place. Add on top of that an insecure job market, expensive higher education, unaffordable housing and the climate crisis, and you understand that we risk creating a lost generation.

The government, in this budget, has turned its back on those young people. I have heard countless stories from people in my electorate who, in the midst of this crisis, have had their JobSeeker payment cut, while the government, with Labor's backing, gives out tax cuts to millionaires. I have heard stories from people like Julie from Abbotsford. She was a chef in the cafe industry, who lost work when we all stayed at home and followed the restrictions to tackle COVID-19. For Julie, the new rate of JobSeeker after the government's cuts will not cover her rent, let alone anything like food or bills. For Jessie in Carlton North, a cut to the JobSeeker payment means not being able to afford medication, food, or psychology appointments. Jay in Princes Hill told me, 'The reduction in the rate is likely to destroy my career, my housing security and financial future.' That this government is prioritising tax cuts for those still employed but abandoning the millions of employees who have paid taxes for decades is deeply distressing. That is dead right, Jay: a tax cut doesn't help you if you don't have a job.

That is why it was wrong for the government, with Labor's backing, to prioritise tax cuts for millionaires and people who have kept their job, putting them ahead of people who have been left behind and are doing it tough. If budgets are about making choices, which they are, then this government is choosing to give $99 billion a year in subsidies to big corporations and the very wealthy and, with Labor's backing, give tax cuts to millionaires, while dropping people on JobSeeker back into poverty. I say, very simply, if there's money in this budget for a tax cut for millionaires or there's money to keep people out of poverty, the latter is where the money should be going.

Even if you don't believe in the basic fairness of keeping people out of poverty, we know that tax cuts are a terrible stimulus if you give them to people who have a lot of money, because they're likely to save it, whereas, if you increase JobSeeker, lift the minimum wage and lift minimum incomes for people who don't have a job, they are going to go and spend that money and assist in the economic recovery. So, even if all you were concerned about was the economy, you would prioritise lifting up those at the bottom over giving more to those at the top and hoping it would trickle down. Instead, this trickle-down budget, which got pushed through last sitting week with Labor's support, is just going to make the inequality crisis worse in this country—and it's going to prolong the recession.

I want to make a critical point here. The government in this budget forecasts six per cent unemployment for years to come. In fact, the Treasurer has picked six per cent unemployment as his target and said, 'As soon as we get to six per cent in a couple of years time, we'll be able to start cutting.' Six per cent unemployment means two million people in this country without a job or without enough hours of work. That's not a target where you can say mission accomplished when you hit six per cent unemployment; that is a crisis. Two million people without enough work or without a job at all is a national crisis.

I say it's a choice because, with the government going into the debt that it is, the question is: what are we going to spend it on? The government could choose, as governments did after World War II, when we had to rebuild, to spend this incredible debt on job-creating, nation-building, planet-saving projects that would bring unemployment back down to two per cent, like it was in the time between World War II and the 1970s. If the government chose, instead of going into debt to fund tax cuts for millionaires with Labor's backing, to put that into building half a million new public housing units over the next 10-15 years, it would create 40,000 job and 4,000 apprenticeships in the process. Put that money into building new public housing and into getting Australia running on 100 per cent renewables and exporting our sunlight. Put that money into expanding our aged-care sector, because, if there's one thing we've learned from the coronavirus crisis, it's that privatisation has failed. It's failed the people in aged care it's and failed the workers there. Instead of giving tax cuts to millionaires, put the money into expanding free education and free childcare across the country. Put it into healthcare because, as we know, women have loft jobs at higher rates than men during this crisis. All of those are industries where there are going to be women employed in potentially greater numbers.

We can have a recovery right now that doesn't involve giving billions to millionaires and hoping some of it trickles down but instead involves investing directly in public housing, in making schools and universities genuinely free, in making sure that everyone in this country not only has a roof but a secure, decent job if they want it, where we can offer a jobs guarantee that means everyone who wants a decent job could have it and where we could lift people out of poverty, which would not only make their lives better but help businesses and everyone trying to recover from the recession. We could do all of those things if we just stopped giving $99 billion a year in tax cuts and handouts to the superwealthy and big corporations. That is the choice that the government in this budget has failed to make.

We had the chance with this budget to invest in public housing, public schools, public education, public healthcare and expanding the jobs that are available so that we could go to every young person and say, 'we can guarantee you a decent job and an income that you can live on. Instead, this government has actively chosen six per cent unemployment. It is criminal to be giving tax cuts to millionaires, which is what Labor and Liberal have just done, while there are a million people unemployed and while people are wondering whether or not they will have JobSeeker or JobKeeper or even just any kind of a job come the end of the year. This budget is not only an opportunity squandered; riding in these tax cuts, as Labor and Liberal have done, where 80 per cent will go to the top 20 per cent of income earners, will make life harder for future governments unless we've the guts to stand up to the big corporations, make them pay their fair share of tax so in this wealthy country of hours we can all live a good life.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This will be a very short speech. This year's federal budget is an economic recovery plan for the Sunshine Coast and every corner of Australia. This budget includes record funding for education, health and aged care. For a region like the Sunshine Coast, which saw unemployment double during COVID in fewer than 50 days, the budget is unashamedly about job creation. For those Sunshine Coast locals in a job, our federal government wants to keep them in a job. For those who don't have a job, we want to help them find a job. Making that a reality on the Sunshine Coast is going to depend on maintaining consumer and business confidence and their ability to spend and invest.

It's economic growth driven by small-business investment and consumer spending in my community that will ensure that together we can rebuild our economy. The Treasurer understands that, which is why the federal budget's two headline measures are targeted right to those points. The government is allowing 11 million Australians to keep more of what they earn through new tax cuts brought forward into this year. This is going to support consumer spending—

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

Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour. The member for Fisher will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.