Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The address-in-reply is an opportunity to reflect upon the new government's agenda, as expressed by the Governor-General in this place on the first day of sitting of the 44th Parliament. It is with a disconcerting sense of deja vu that I rise today to comment on the coalition government's plan to slash thousands of jobs from the Australian Public Service and make savage and unnecessary cuts to the programs and services that benefit the lives of so many Australian families.

I have had the great honour of representing the people of the ACT as senator since 1996 and yet, sadly, the content of my comments today echo those of my early speeches to this chamber in that same year. Now, as then, I rise to defend not only my community and the many dedicated public servants I have the immense privilege of representing, but also millions of vulnerable Australians across our nation, from a new government that is embarking upon a program of cuts to the Australian Public Service that is motivated by a tired and redundant ideology. We are just a few short months into the new Abbott government and yet it is abundantly clear that the stale, old Liberal Party playbook has been dusted off and we are witnessing a replay of the early actions of the Howard government and many state coalition governments since. Now, as then, the coalition comes to government committing to make a set number of cuts to Public Service jobs while at the same time effusively promising that there will be no forced redundancies. Well, I have heard that before. But, following their election, the new government initiated a review.

Federally, the coalition are in the habit of calling these commissions of audit, for which the resulting recommendations, I presume, are very much a foregone conclusion. I know the pattern well. The promises of the pre-election period are quickly discarded and deep, painful cuts to the Public Service are enacted due to a manufactured debt and deficit crisis. But what we know is that these measures are unnecessary and that the debt and deficit crisis is a product of a deliberate and deceitful political campaign to saddle Labor with the blame for their plans, this government's plans, to radically cut government services. For the entire period of the last parliament, the coalition conducted an unrelenting and entirely spurious campaign against the former government in relation to debt and deficit. The then opposition leader, Mr Abbott, and Mr Hockey deliberately sought to manufacture a sense of crisis in the condition of the federal government's finances—all specifically designed to suit their political advantage—and completely ignored the reality of Australia's robust economic performance under Labor's stewardship. This campaign needlessly and recklessly damaged consumer and business confidence in our economy during the most trying period for the global economy since the Great Depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s. But this campaign, motivated by political self-interest and quite divorced from reality, has been exposed for what it was—that is, farcical.

The priorities of the new government in the period since the election have exposed its campaign as posturing solely for the political purposes I described and put the lie to any notion of a debt crisis or budget emergency. We now have a government whose priority is to abolish a price on pollution without a credible plan to reduce the punishing impacts of pollution on climate change; we now have a government whose priority is to give a tax cut to billionaire mining companies through the abolition of the minerals resource rent tax; we now have a government whose priority is to hand hundreds of millions of dollars of tax concessions to the 16,000 superannuants with net worth in excess of $2 million, while ripping away a tax concession for 3.6 million of our lowest-paid workers, who are predominantly women; and we now have a government whose priority is to dismantle the early years quality framework intended to boost the wages of hardworking childcare professionals, who are amongst Australia's lowest paid workers, and reallocate that money to subsidise au pairs and nannies for comparatively wealthy families. These are not the actions of a government confronted with a budget crisis. These are the actions of government suffering from an ideological myopia. Sadly, we know why this campaign was confected. It is designed to provide the necessary political cover for the pursuit of a tired and dated ideological agenda of cuts to the public sector. We know this, and I know this, because we have seen it all before.

I will return to the government's cuts and their impact on my community, but first I would like to turn to the real facts of Australia's economic performance under the previous Labor government. I do so because it is essential to combat the inevitable revisionism of the coalition on this matter. It is a revisionism that was also conducted by the Howard government when they were elected in 1996 which attempted to paint the reforming period of the Hawke-Keating government in an unjustly negative light. We have already seen the attempts to downplay the enviable economic inheritance that this government has received from the previous government in this chamber, and doubtless we will hear much more of it. It is the Howard-Costello playbook, dusted off, being played again.

The previous Labor government's record—of which, as a member, I was exceedingly proud—is a solid one. This is especially true when taking into account the severe economic downturn in the period following the global financial crisis and the economic performance of comparable economies. And this, unlike the new government's unsubstantiated attacks on that record and the revisionism of that period that we have already seen by members opposite in this chamber, is attested to by many of the world's most pre-eminent economic institutions and commentators. During our time in government we grew our economy by more than 14 per cent, in some of the most challenging economic conditions ever faced by an Australian government. This feat is all the more impressive when contrasted with the performance of comparable economies. The same period saw the United States's economy grow by less than one-fifth of that, and the European Union saw its economy contract by two per cent.

Under Labor's sound management our economy grew from the 15th largest to the 12th largest in the world. Our prudent and measured fiscal stimulus helped avoid the rapid upswings in unemployment experienced across the developed world and the crippling social and economic costs now being experienced across much of southern Europe and elsewhere. One of our finest legacies in this regard is that, according to Treasury analysis, the previous government's stimulus measures helped save 200,000 jobs during the darkest period of the global financial crisis. That is 200,000 families sustained by employment in a period when they otherwise would not have been.

The former government's expeditious response has been acknowledged by leading economists and economic institutions worldwide. Nobel Prize winning economists such as Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, along with the International Monetary Fund, have praised the design and scope of Australia's stimulus response to the global financial crisis as the most effective stimulus response of any government in the world and a model to be emulated internationally in the event of another global downturn.

Unemployment remained low under Labor, particularly when contrasted against the performance of comparable nations over the same period. We created one million new jobs while across the world tens of millions were shed. Interest rates fell from 6.75 per cent to 2.75 per cent, saving Australian families with a $300,000 mortgage $5,000 a year. Inflation was contained across the period of government. In fact, under Labor's stewardship Australia experienced the first minerals export boom in our history that was not also accompanied by an outbreak of inflation.

With net government debt just above 10 per cent of GDP, Australia has one of the lowest levels of government debt in the world. For the sake of comparison it is worth noting that the United Kingdom, the United States and Japan all have net debt levels more than eight times our position. Even Canada, a country of similar resource abundance, has a net government debt position in excess of 34 per cent. Our credit rating from all major credit ratings agencies is AAA, and we remain one of merely eight nations worldwide with a stable outlook.

The former Labor government is proud of its achievements in managing the economy, and these facts are firm evidence of our strong and intelligent stewardship. We bequeathed to the new government a growing, low-inflation, low-unemployment economy with an enviable set of government books. Our policies ensured that hundreds of thousands of Australians remained in their jobs in the aftermath of the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression and that new jobs were created. We left the new government with an economic and fiscal outlook that would be coveted by leaders across the developed world. That is Labor's proud record.

But, going back to my earlier points, we know the real reason for the government's posturing on this. They need their manufactured sense of crisis in relation to government finances to provide the necessary political cover for their 'commission of cuts'. It is simply cover so that they can arbitrarily and unnecessarily take the axe to the Australian Public Service and the many services provided by government that so many Australians, particularly those on low incomes, rely upon. A reality based appraisal of the fiscal and economic conditions bequeathed to the government provides no justification for the cuts to the provision of government services that lie at the heart of the government's agenda.

The impacts of this agenda will be felt most sharply in one place, and that is of course Canberra. As a proud and passionate Canberran, and this being our wonderful centenary year, I feel more strongly about this than ever. Canberra is my home and home to hundreds of thousands of people who are also proud to call Canberra home. But there is no way to deny it: the slash-and-burn agenda of the coalition is destined to hurt our regional and local economy.

In the face of all this, there is still plenty of room to be positive. We have actually weathered the storm before. We endured an economic downturn from 1996 through to 1998—I think that was the lowest point—but since that time we have diversified in quite an extraordinary way. Having been through a downturn following the election of a coalition government, we know that things do turn around. So I am quite positive about Canberra's future, despite this parlous state of affairs. I would particularly like to take this opportunity to applaud and acknowledge the forward vision and planning, at an economic level and at a social level, of the ACT Labor government. As I said, we have a more diversified economy now than in 1996, and Canberrans, working in the Public Service or in business, particularly small business, have shown ourselves to be a very resilient and resourceful community.

Thanks to the foresight and efforts of many, Canberra is now a world-leading education hub. We sit at the nexus of some of our many great national institutions of scientific and social research, such as the CSIRO; the John Curtin School of Medical Research; the national ICT centre of excellence, NICTA; and many more. Proximity to these institutions, to our federal Public Service and to a highly educated population, both here in Canberra and in the region, makes us a more attractive destination than ever for investment and start-up business. We will always have proximity to the Commonwealth government, one of the largest purchasers for many goods and services in the Australian economy. One area that I am particularly interested in, as always, is information and communication technology. The Commonwealth will remain the largest single purchaser of information technologies in Australia.

All these things are great strengths of the Canberra economy and all these things, as they have before, will help us through harsh economic times. Canberra has a very bright and brightening future. But we must learn from what happened in 1996 and harden our resolve to be able to withstand the pressures that will be brought to bear as the coalition takes the axe to the Public Service here. Just to remind people listening today, when the Howard government came to power in 1996 they promised, committed to, 2,500 Public Service job cuts with no forced redundancies. We know the reality was tens of thousands—some reports have the numbers well over 30,000 ultimately. This resulted in loss of business and consumer confidence and a collapse in property values and ultimately a recession. The Abbott government has promised 12,000 job cuts and no forced redundancies but we have already seen them back away from this commitment. As the additional supplementary estimates information came out, they were forced to concede that they were not able to make their forecast savings of $5.2 billion with only 12,000 job cuts and no forced redundancies. The reason that forced their concession in this regard was that once you project that there will be no forced redundancies the natural attrition rate changes. This is a known factor, it has happened before, yet we still had a new government that persisted in taking what many of us in Canberra knew and tried to convey during the election campaign was a promise that they would be unable to keep. That has come to pass and they have not been able to keep the promise of no forced redundancies. We have seen them abandon that promise and, if experience is any guide, the 'commission of cuts' will continue to construct a cover for a desire to cut further.

With that context in mind, Canberra has just come off one of the best years ever in celebrating our raison d'etre. The centenary of Canberra has proven to be not just a fantastic celebration for Canberrans but indeed for the whole nation as systematically we have moved through our centenary year highlighting and celebrating each step 100 years ago when the formation and foundation stones of this great city were laid. I have reflected many times in this chamber on the significant historical steps taken on significant dates and I have had the pleasure of seeing the commitment of the ACT government through their creative director of Canberra's centenary, Robyn Archer, as she has worked her magic through a whole range of extraordinary events, celebrating the great minds of the nation through their many topical talks and through lectures relating to the profound sciences. We have seen extraordinary cultural events. We have seen our cultural institutions step up and put their best foot forward and open their doors to not only Canberrans but the many hundreds of thousands of Australians and overseas visitors coming to see an array of exhibitions and artworks and cultural institutions. It moved me to see those exhibitions but they remind many Australians how proud they also can be in the national capital when they come here and realise perhaps for the first time that this city is as much theirs as it is for the people who live here. It is very much a city for the whole of Australia, and in this sense whatever damage is inflicted through cuts here we will be resilient. I do not believe the economy will be as damaged as it has been in the past but this is because it is a lived experience and we know what we need to do to keep stimulating at a local level through start-up businesses to promote small business activity, we know that for those families affected by job loss we need to work harder in providing greater job opportunities across the ACT Public Service and indeed through transition to the private sector.

All of these things make me extremely proud, as I said at the start of my comments, to be a senator for the ACT. We are facing tough times, and all the indicators are showing that, but it will not dampen our spirits as a community. We have been through these tough times before and have recovered with great strength. I look forward to working through this period with the people I represent with a sense of optimism and resilience as we take on the challenge of having contraction forced upon us through unjustified and ideological cuts imposed by this newly elected Abbott government.