Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to contribute to this debate this afternoon, because Senator Fifield is actually quite right in what he has just said. Running an economy is very hard. Making budgetary decisions is very difficult. They do require responsible decision making; they do require discipline; they do require prioritising; they do require a sense of understanding the whole. When we think about how well our economy has fared over the life of the Labor governments and compare that to the wonderful announcement today of a draft economic policy outlining a plan to provide tax incentives and direct payments to turn the tropical north into an economic powerhouse, it seems peculiar to say that the least you could accuse the Gillard government of is not having a coherent fiscal strategy, because I do not think that anyone could claim a coherent fiscal strategy is one to split Australians into different personal tax zones and forcibly shift hundreds of thousands of public servants to cities north of the Tropic of Capricorn, out to Karratha or to Perth or to Darwin or to Cairns or to Broome. Crazy-brave maybe, but certainly not a coherent strategy. The fact that the proposition actually clearly breaches the Constitution is besides the fact. I do have to think that the headlines today that Mr Abbott has gone troppo are probably the best expression I can think of. It is hardly a surprise that the opposition is in retreat about this leaked document. If the number of emails and calls that our offices have been receiving is any indication, I am sure that the opposition has been receiving many more. Hardly a coherent fiscal strategy coming from the opposition today. But I have to say that not everyone actually thinks it is a dud. One Daily Telegraph reader, Alastair of Newrybar, posted online this morning:

Been saying for years that this should happen to diversify our work force and increase our productivity as mooted by Lang Hancock and Joe Bjelke-P. Logical development in the top end could see Australia becoming the food bowl to the world, with plenty of Asians only too happy to migrate and develop market gardens and farms. With an adequate water supply, anything will grow and having worked on the mine developments in the 60s, the weather is not too oppressive. Just when I was doubtfully wondering if you have the cojones to do something radically productive rather than drift along playing politics, you show you may have a spine after all Tony. Try raising the voting and drinking ages back to 21, re-establishing National Service and see the votes roll in.

Yes, that is exactly right: that proposal came straight out of the Bjelke-Petersen era with support from not only Lang Hancock but also, of course, his daughter, Gina Rinehart.

By contrast, the Gillard government's fiscal strategy has not only been coherent; it has been fair and it has been equitable, certainly not slugging the ordinary folk so that the rich can become richer or kowtowing to the Gina Rineharts of the world; not tearing the heart out of communities; not playing with people's lives but putting in place a well-thought-out package of measures to help people make ends meet, to spread the benefits of the mining boom and to be responsible economic managers. Senator Bishop spoke very passionately about Australia's economic record, where Australia's economy really stands as a beacon of resilience in the world. Unlike other countries, we have avoided recession, we saved hundreds of thousands of jobs in the face of the worst global financial conditions since the Great Depression and we bullet-proofed the Australian economy. We kept it out of recession. That is something that is very difficult for the opposition to acknowledge. It did not happen by accident; it was a result of shrewd, strategic thinking about what decisions needed to be made, about what investments needed to be made and about what stimulus had to be injected into the economy—and it required courage to act on those decisions.

I will remind listeners and those who are interested in this debate today that since December 2007, when Labor came to power, the Euro area economy has shrunk by 1.7 per cent, the Japanese economy has shrunk by 1.7 per cent and the US economy has grown by just 1.2 per cent. But here in Australia our Australian economy has actually grown by almost 13 per cent since that time. That is the significant message that we all need to understand—and that only came about from a very coherent fiscal and economic strategy.

Let us get back to the matter of jobs. Worldwide, unemployment is on the increase. It is a tragic situation. We know that the cornerstone of good economic management is to keep people in work or to get people into work. Around 800,000 jobs have been created since we were first elected. That is jobs created, not axed and not packed up and spirited away to Karratha or other points north where there is not even the infrastructure to support them. And it is not the 12,000 public servant jobs that Mr Abbott is determined to get rid of—12,000 public servants and their families to be cast on the scrapheap of unemployment.

Our fiscal policy is designed to support families and individuals and to help industry grow and help the economy to grow. We have put in place a fairer tax system, with cuts to the income tax rate for most Australians so that they have more money to spend every fortnight, and we have tripled the tax-free threshold, which means that more than a million people not only do not need to a tax return but also do not pay any tax out of their take-home pay. They are able to spend that meeting cost-of-living expenses. And we have made many, many other economically responsible and coherent changes that have improved the lives of Australians and have underpinned strong economic growth.

The fact that we have invested so much in paid parental leave is very important in building some productivity into our economy. Now that it is in place we are actually going to see the benefits of that investment, with more than 160,000 new parents across Australia benefitting from up to 18 weeks leave under the paid parental leave scheme. The support that we have provided to families through family payments is really very significant. Those issues are part of a coherent strategy.

For more evidence, let us look at the way we have means tested the private health insurance rebate, meaning that low- and middle-income earners are no longer being forced to subsidise the health insurance of higher-income earners. And why should they have to do that? We have invested $4.6 billion in dental care. That means that more than three million kids are going to be able to get to see the dentist, and it will significantly boost public dental services for Australians on lower incomes. That of course boosts the overall health of the nation.

This morning here in Parliament House we had the very important launch of a new campaign, a new alliance, called the Social Determinants of Health Alliance—a very significant piece of work that links together productivity, economic development, economic costs and the social benefits of improved health and wellbeing of Australians. We need to think about that. The overall health of the nation is not just about economic health; it is about the social and mental health of our families as well. It saves wasting money on unnecessary and available health interventions. Senator Fifield, in his motion, talked about living within one's means. Well, living within one's means means strategically, thoughtfully and responsibly allocating resources so that they provide the best outcomes for the economic and social wellbeing of the country.

Our coherent approach in managing the economy has a big-picture focus. There is the household assistance for the carbon price, which I talked about in the chamber yesterday. Australian families and pensioners are getting payments to help with their utility bills now and over the coming months. And we are investing wisely in the future, because of our recognition that the science of climate change is a reality that we cannot ignore. It is responsible and critically important to make $3.2 billion available to the Australian Renewable Energy Agency to support stable research and development, and $200 million for clean technologies. These are all part of a coherent fiscal strategy that is about investing for our future.

And what about the National Disability Insurance Scheme, a coherent policy—coherent with Labor values; coherent with Australian values? It is a responsible, thoughtful approach to a problem that has been ignored for far too long. That is what the Gillard government talk about when we talk about vision. That is in very serious contrast to the opposition's so-called 'Vision 2030', which people are laughing about today—laughing, if they were not actually scratching their heads trying to make some sense of what is going on with an opposition that proposes to carve $800 million out of a foreign aid budget to be diverted to this incoherent megaproject in Northern Australia. It really does not bear much more consideration.

As I said, under the Gillard government, the Australian economy grew by 3.1 per cent last year—faster than any other advanced economy. We are now the 12th-largest economy in the world. Since Labor came into office we have moved up three places. IMF Article IV from 16 November last year says, 'five years on, both the economy and the financial sector continue to outperform most of their peers'. That is the IMF's judgement on Australia's performance.

Our investment outlook is strong—we have an incredible investment pipeline—as is our credit rating, with 'AAA with a stable outlook' from all three rating agencies for the first time in our history. Our net debt as a percentage of GDP is a mere fraction of our peers'. Our interest rates are low. When the Liberals left office, interest rates were 6.76 per cent. The Reserve Bank's official cash rate now is three per cent. Our interest rates are the lowest since 1996. There is a benefit to mortgage holders. On a $300,000 mortgage—a pretty average family mortgage—families are now paying $5,000 a year less compared to when the coalition left office. So there is nothing to be gained by Senator Fifield bleating about the way the government has managed the economy.

We are held up as an example in the developed world. If it is coherence Senator Fifield wants to see, then Labor has it in spades. Think about what Senator Fifield's own leader, Mr Abbott, said in his speech to the National Press Club, he gave some early insights into what is in store for Australia under a coalition government. There would be massive cuts to the Public Service: 12,000 jobs—12,000 families—and massive cuts to front-line services. I think about the public servants who are doing so much at the moment, out there on the front line, like the people at Centrelink. Those people are doing amazing jobs and they are the ones who are going to be hit by Mr Abbott's policies.

Mr Hockey has promised to deliver a surplus in the first year and in every other year. Already we know that he has a huge credibility problem in how to do that, because he still has to explain to the Australian people how he is going to fund his multibillion dollar black hole and where his razor gang is going to start slashing and burning. The irony of it all is that the policy paper released by Mr Abbott, which is called Real solutions for all Australians, is actually going to have a devastating impact on many Australians. It will certainly cause anxiety for people as they come into the election campaign, waiting to hear just what it is that Mr Abbott has in mind for them.

Let me remind senators again: we have a hugely strong investment outlook. We have a record $268 billion in infrastructure projects at an advanced stage. Senator Bishop talked before about the investment pipeline, where things had started to be identified; planning is in place and now we are starting to see the implementation and the construction of those major infrastructure projects and the delivery of outcomes, which will mean improved exports and opportunities. We have low debt and strong public finances. We have the 12th largest economy in the world. Many of us here in this chamber have had the opportunity in the past 12 months to travel overseas and to understand very clearly how Australia is held up as a beacon around the world. People ask us how it is that we have an unemployment rate of five or 5½ per cent. Last year, in November, I was in Ireland, and there were desperate questions from the Irish government about the situation there, where the unemployment rate now is over 15 per cent generally but the youth unemployment rate is now over 40 per cent. There is a desperation in countries like Ireland, Argentina, Greece, Italy and Portugal about almost a lost generation of young people who will never actually be able to recover.

What did we do during the global financial crisis? We put in place a massive effort to ensure that we did not lose our skills base, so we are not in the situation of countries like Ireland, who sent more than six per cent of their population overseas last year—many of them here to Australia—repatriating money home. Thank God we are not in that situation and never will be. And we will not be, because we have a strong fiscal strategy. We have a strong economy and we have a government that is responsible and strategic about the way in which these things will be considered and managed. We have a government that is governing for all Australians and seeking to make sure that the economy supports us all, that the economy does not pick winners and losers and that we can be a good society as well as a strong economy. That is the government that I am proud of, and I think it is a very coherent strategy and one that I will be delighted to be propagating during the next six months.