Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Cormann) and the Minister for Communications (Senator Fifield) to questions without notice asked by Senators Ketter and McLucas today relating to the economy and to the National Broadband Network.

I rise to take note of answers to questions asked by Senators Ketter and McLucas. I want to point to two of the words that we have heard throughout the week while we have been playing 'nimble, agile' bingo on this side of the chamber. This is a government that uses those words and they are going to have to practise being nimble and agile because they are dancing everywhere around the truth. They need to mind the gap between what they say here and the reality that Australians understand about this government. There is a massive credibility gap. This government cannot be believed. In anything it says, it completely distorts the truth—even in response to the first question. The GST has been very much brought to life as a conversation by a government that, once upon a time, said there would 'never ever' be a change to the 10 per cent GST—and now they have opened it up. 'Everything is on the table', they say outside this chamber. But we ask a question to the minister and he says, 'No, we're not talking about that'. Ten per cent, and up to 15 per cent, on all the things that people are already paying GST on and from zero to 15 per cent proposed for everything, including fresh food—what a devastating impact!

There is a credibility gap between what they say here and what they say outside the chamber. These guys simply are not capable of telling the truth. If we in anyway needed to have that backed up, it became even more evident when Senator Katter, my good colleague here beside me, asked directly: 'Is it true what was said yesterday by the Treasury deputy secretary—that Australia is now in for a prolonged period of below par growth the likes of which we have rarely seen outside a recession?' That is the direct quote that was in the question, that is the direct quote from the speech that was given and it is the direct quote from the two articles that reported it in the paper—by Mark Coultan, in The Australian, and by Peter Martin in The Sydney Morning Herald. But do you think the fact that it was on the public record in those three places would prevent the Minister for Finance, Senator Cormann, from actually telling the truth? No. He decided that he was ready to absolutely slander other people who are telling the truth about what was said yesterday. He said that that was not accurate. Well, it absolutely was accurate and the sad reality is that it is going to have a devastating impact on Australians right across the country.

As the deputy treasury secretary said, we are in fact in a prolonged period of below par growth, the likes of which we have rarely seen outside a recession—and it is attributable to the shameful economic action of this government. They are out there telling the community, as they have done for many decades, that they are great economic managers. But the reality is that growth is well below trend. It was predicted to be three per cent in May but the reality we now see is that it has been downgraded to 2.75 per cent. That is bad for Australia and it does bear out the second part of the question that my colleague asked, which was about the fact that Australians knew that we were not doing too well under the member for North Sydney, Joe Hockey, but we are going to do an awful lot worse under the new Treasurer, Mr Morrison, who is doing an appalling job from the record of these economic forecasts that were put forward yesterday.

Finally, in another gilding of the lily, the MTM, the multi-technology mix, as those opposite would have us call it, which is really being translated into a disaster right across this nation—