Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

On the same matter, Senator Mason is right about one thing and one thing only: we are dealing with a serious economic recession. But what is of critical importance to all Australians and their jobs is not the regional recession, despite the fact that this weekend we have an election in Queensland; rather, it is the fact that we are dealing with a global financial crisis. If you listened to the opposition in question time today or to them taking note of answers after question time, there is one area only where the opposition are being quite consistent with their policy, and that is what I have characterised previously as scepticism and denial. Their scepticism and denial about the global financial crisis is astounding. We all know their longstanding scepticism about climate change; there is nothing new in that. There is nothing new that they could use today to focus debate on that issue. But what is shameless, what is outrageous, is the way they seek to utilise every shift in our labour market, as if it is a sign, to justify their scepticism and their denial.

The best example of that recently—and I will not harp on the comment ‘let’s just wait and see’ made by the previous shadow Treasurer, Julie Bishop, about the global financial crisis—is from their new shadow Treasurer, Mr Hockey, who used the Pacific Brands situation as a case in point on this issue. Quite aside from his claims that Pacific Brands have made their decisions due to factors well beyond the immediate, pressing, economic recession worldwide, he tried to claim that it was our labour policies that had generated that shift. The one simple fact that he should have been aware of, that he should have known—and that, certainly, Senator Mason was seeking to deny in this debate today—is that our first economic stimulus package actually increased retail spending on socks and jocks. It increased retail spending. It was quite counterintuitive for the shadow Treasurer to even use that as a case in point. Labor’s package had increased pre-Christmas retail spending in Australia on socks and jocks. That is why I use that as perhaps the best example. He is the best person this opposition can come up with as shadow Treasurer, and he cannot understand the sheer economics of what was occurring in the Pacific Brands case.

But that is not the only example. If you look at the cases raised today in question time, in case after case after case, shifts in the labour market were used by the opposition to try and deny not only the global financial crisis but also that we should do something to drive investment in renewable energy. Why is it that this opposition cannot accept that we should do something in that area? Perhaps it is the same reason, this same scepticism and denial, that leads them to reject us doing anything to support investment in the commercial property sector. Again, this is a case of denial, but I thought it was an even better example, because if Mr Turnbull maintains his opposition in that area we are indeed looking at 50,000 people losing their jobs in that sector. Fifty thousand people, the estimates tell us, will lose their jobs in the commercial property sector if the opposition oppose yet another measure that is trying to support and sustain Australian jobs.

The opposition can continue to harp on the various examples that will occur in the future in the Australian labour market, because every Australian knows that we do suffer some level of vulnerability to the global financial crisis. The opposition may want to deny that and use every single case to try and argue that it is the Rudd Labor government’s fault, but Australians are not that stupid. It is no wonder that you are suffering in the polls in how well you are regarded as economic managers—because Australians are not that stupid. (Time expired)