Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am aggrieved at the confected outrage, the absurd criticism and the mindless negativity we see from those opposite towards the Albanese Labor government. They like to carp and moan and accuse the government of creating the inflationary and cost-of-living pressures that the community is currently facing. The reality is that the coalition has very little credibility in terms of economic management both in government and in opposition. Firstly, when they were in government, the coalition did nothing to contain inflation. They racked up big deficits and even bigger debt. They did nothing for the cost of living. They didn't bank savings when it came to budgetary and fiscal management. On dealing with the underlying issues of the economy, they did almost nothing.

When governments lose and people go to opposition, it's quite common for them to talk about the good things they did in government. You almost never hear the opposition members talk about the good things they did in government. It was simply nine years of wasted opportunity. 'Everything is now too hard,' they thought when they were in government. It was someone else's responsibility. It was the responsibility of the states or of someone else. In the climate wars we had 22 energy policies from those opposite. The NEG didn't even last until question time, from the time it was announced in the morning. They couldn't land anything.

When it came to housing and homelessness it was always the responsibility of the states, even when it came to veterans' homelessness and housing issues. There was the rising cost of our health care, university and TAFE. Who can forget the $50 billion in cuts to health and the $30 billion in cuts to education in the first Abbott government budget in 2014? The rising costs of child care, university and TAFE were completely missing in action under the coalition government: 'Just leave it to the market,' 'We'll make cuts,' and, 'Commissions of audit.'

Simply nothing was done with skills agreements with states and territories. It took the member for Gorton to come in as the responsible minister to achieve that. On industry policy and boosting sovereign capacity and supply chain resilience, you'd think that after COVID they'd have done something about it, but they did nothing about it. This was a government that practically goaded the car industry to leave and destroyed a large part of our manufacturing bases. I can remember when the car industry left Australia. People involved in the supply chain for the car industry were as far as Kilcoy in my electorate, but they lost their capacity to engage with the car industry when the car industry left. Those nine years were a wasted time. They had great opportunity. They came in with a huge majority in 2013.

We were elected on a platform of getting things done. It was a platform that wanted to address the range of problems in the community that the coalition had neglected and ignored for many years. When we were in opposition, we were critical of the then government. There were times when we took a bipartisan approach on serious issues. But we see now from those opposite the culture wars, nasty negativity and divisive wedge politics. When push comes to shove, I think we've got to work in the national interest. On this side we know there are a lot of people in our community who are doing it tough. I know that from the mobile offices that I've been doing particularly in country areas. Last Saturday, I was at Rosewood Shire to talk to people who have been doing it tough.

Let's be clear: it would be a lot worse if those opposite were in power now. Let me talk about the fact that, on 1 July, just yesterday, we saw a situation where we had tax cuts come in for 80,000 people in my electorate, with 90 per cent of those people getting more than they would have under the coalition. The average tax cut in my electorate is $1,380 a year, $26 a week. There was the $300 energy bill relief that those opposite have never supported; in fact, they opposed energy bill relief when we brought it in just over a year or so ago. There's $325 to eligible small businesses on top of the $1,000 government that the Miles Labor government is doing in Queensland. That is $1,300 off electricity bills. These things are important—absolutely critical.

There is the HELP debt change in indexation, through which 23,000 people in my electorate will benefit. Commonwealth rent assistance increasing by 10 per cent after 15 per cent the time before—those opposite did not do anything about that at all in the nine years. We're giving a helping hand to 12,000 households in my electorate. There are tax cuts, energy bill relief, cheaper medicine and pay rises for 2.6 million Australians. Those opposite could not even bring themselves to support an increase in the minimum wage. In fact, their finance spokesperson, Mathias Cormann, talked about keeping wages down as a design feature of their economic policy.

They can come up with the idea that in 2040 they'll have some nuclear reactors at a much higher cost for energy. It's a harebrained initiative. It really is a ridiculous initiative. I can't believe it's a policy. Look at the statement they issued. A party that wants to be in government issued a press statement with no costings and no details saying where they're going to get the money. They talk about being a party of free enterprise, but they want a big socialist, nationalised nuclear industry in this country. It's quite astonishing that the Liberals and Nationals have fallen that far away from their historical roots.

We want to make sure we help people who are doing it tough, and that's why we're going to make a difference with what we have done. We've rolled out cost-of-living relief. We've done it before and we're doing it again. Those opposite cannot bring themselves even to talk about the tax cuts. Why? Because, when given the opportunity to reduce taxation for people earning less than $45,000, they did not do anything in relation to that issue. In fact, at first they wanted to oppose it. They opposed it with all their might. Then they wanted to roll it back, and then they squibbed it. Even recently you hear these little mutterings from those opposite about having their own tax policy going forward—until the CEDA conference, when the Leader of the Opposition had to concede that basically they're not going to do anything about it.

We're proud of the changes we made. They were fairer. People like me got half the tax benefit that I would have got, but people below $45,000 a year got an increase in benefit. We're proud of those changes because they fundamentally made the tax cuts fairer. That's genuine tax relief lifting thresholds, cutting tax rates, getting average tax rates down and returning bracket creep all at the same time. It means that, on average, people across the country are $36 a week better off. If you're talking about an average household with a couple of kids, it's $63 a week. If you're on $120,000 a year, you're $52 a week better off. If you're on $100,000 a year, you're $42 a week better off. If you're on $80,000 a year, you're $32 a week better off.

Here's the thing: under stage 3 tax cuts, those opposite denied the opportunity for those low-income earners to get a tax cut. They abandoned people on $45,000 a year, so this is important. Over 10 years, every year the average tax rate for the average worker will be lower under Labor's plan than Scott Morrison's plan. If the people in opposition had had their way, some taxpayers would have missed out. The deputy leader was so enraged as I made that point before. They went: 'Roll back! Roll back!' We've got a bit of advice for you. We tried to roll back the GST. It didn't work. So the idea of rolling back the tax cuts was a really silly idea.

We have been putting downward pressure on inflation. Inflation is much lower now than it was when those opposite were there. It's got a four in front. It was 6.1 per cent when those opposite were last in.

Since coming to government, wages have grown at almost double the rate of our predecessors. We've overseen the creation of 880,000 jobs. That's a record for any first-term government. We've supported back-to-back increases in the minimum wage, and we've delivered a historic and long-overdue 15 per cent pay rise for aged-care workers. They were some of the heroes in the pandemic. From this week onwards, 2.6 million Australian workers on award wages will get another pay rise. Because we want people to earn more and keep more of what they earn, under our government there will be a pay rise for millions of workers on awards. Those opposite could not bring themselves once in nine years in government to support an increase in the minimum wage.

We have frozen the cost of PBS medicines on top of delivering cheaper medicines. Remember the move to 60-day dispensing. Those opposite said that it would lead to pharmacies being shut around the country. I can tell you that no pharmacies have shut in my electorate at all.

In addition to that, we've added an extra two weeks of paid parental leave, something those opposite could never have provided or even contemplated. In addition to that, workers earning more and keeping more also get a top up in their superannuation from 1 July. This is really important.

Those opposite have a policy in terms of housing that doesn't support national issues at a federal level. They want to take superannuation out of people's hands and put it into housing. They haven't got a policy for housing. All they've got is a policy to oppose housing initiatives at a federal level.