Chris Ketter (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak in relation to responses given by Senator Brandis to questions that I asked. I asked a question about whether PricewaterhouseCoopers was correct when it said that more than one-third of Australia is in recession. Senator Brandis, in his response, chose to discuss what he considered to be the real facts, which I considered to be quite a selective representation of some of the economic indicators.

He did take time to make reference to the NAB monthly business survey and he talked about that being up on the 12-month figures. He was highly selective in quoting those figures. In the time the current government has been in office that particular index has been down by 75 per cent and we have seen wages growth slumping to the lowest level in two decades, at 2.3 per cent, to March 2015.

The questions I asked of Senator Brandis went to income inequality and concentration within the economy. I was very disappointed to hear the answers from Senator Brandis because, as Senator Singh has indicated, he has his head in the sand when it comes to these particular issues. When I asked about the concentration of the national income in just 10 of 2,214 locations in Australia, he advised rather glibly that, when one looks at the PwC report, the concentration is found to be in CBDs. He said, 'That is what we would expect to see.'

However, when you look at the commentary from the researcher, Mr Tyson, he identifies that, from a social and equity point of view, there are challenges and potential conflicts that arise from this concentration of the economy in particular areas. He talks about the consequence being that governments should increasingly focus on, for example, public transport to link some of the CBDs with suburbs where there are powerhouse locations of innovation—for instance, the greater Sydney area.

But this is an area where this government have been found wanting again, because they abolished the Major Cities Unit in 2013 and they are slashing infrastructure spending across the country by 11.2 per cent over the next four years. When it comes to looking at the issue of inequality in the economy, this is a government which are absolutely disinterested.

We should be interested in this particular issue because there have been studies that show that rising inequality has an impact on growth. There is IMF research to the effect that there are economic downsides to inequality. Raising the income share of the poorest 20 per cent of the population increases growth by as much as 0.38 percentage points over five years. By contrast, increasing the income share of the richest 20 per cent by one per cent decreases growth by 0.08 percentage points. When we see the response from this government one could almost assume that they are continuing to apply the trickle-down economic model. We can see that this particular approach has failed the people of Australia.

Senator Singh made reference to the report from ACOSS which was released today. One of the concerns that I have in looking at that report is that ACOSS has identified a number of the structures we have had in Australia which have been a retardant to inequality over a period of time. When one looks at those—the taxation system, the system of minimum wages that we have in Australia and our income support systems—one can see that these are all things which have been inhibitors of inequality. These are all of the things that this government is seeking to attack. Time does not allow me to talk about that, but this government is looking at higher inequality, and Labor will always be the party that stands— (Time expired)