Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

To you, Acting Deputy President.

Housing affordability is a serious issue for many Australians. Senator Ruston yesterday talked about intergenerational debt—the debt that we are leaving to future generations—as being our biggest issue. It is very similar to our massive moral obligation on retiring debt. She did not actually break down what that debt was. I do not think any of us disagree that personal debt, especially when it is debt-fuelled consumption or debt on a dangerous housing market, has serious implications for the future of this economy. I do not think any of us disagree with that. But where is the discussion about good debt and bad debt? Where is the discussion about debt that we actually need to spend on future generations of Australians and on productive and transformative infrastructure? It is missing from the rhetoric and spin of the Turnbull government. It is disappointing because, going into the election, Mr Malcolm Turnbull did make several comments about the need to look at innovative infrastructure, financing and development of this country. But all we have had since the election is more three-word, or even five-word, slogans. So I will give the Prime Minister that—there has been an advance on the slogans. Nevertheless, we need a lot more than that; we actually need some substance.

The taxation system is riddled with incentives for property speculators. It is inflating house prices. We know that a lot of Australians—and I have met a lot of them—are not fortunate enough to own their own home. This comes at the expense of an entire generation who are being locked out of the housing market in this country. Capital gains discounts, negative gearing and free passes for self-managed superannuation—the money that is flowing into investment properties—has put a handicap on young people looking to own their own home, and it is forcing them to spend more and more of their income on sky-high rents. Where do we hear the discussion about a dangerous housing market from this government and how we are going to tackle that? Well, the Greens have led on policies to tackle negative gearing and capital gains tax. Labor had a variation of that during the election. I understand—there is certainly speculation—that it is being discussed in the Liberal party room. But if we can work on that together as a parliament—on ways that we can actually tackle that—and work on intergenerational equity and inequality in this country, that would be a positive thing for the Australian people. That would be showing true leadership and true vision.

Let's talk about monetary policy. We know that it has reached its limits and that it is struggling to stimulate aggregate demand. This is a theme all around the world. The world economy remains fragile. So, essentially, we are in uncharted waters. With Australian bond rates so low the government should be borrowing right now to invest in our future.

I would say the massive moral obligation of our time, Senator O'Sullivan, through you, Chair, is actually avoiding underinvesting in future generations of Australians. I went around the country, including to some areas in your state, Senator O'Sullivan, and heard about the infrastructure gap in this country. Nearly a trillion dollars is needed around this nation to invest—to create jobs and to invest in our communities. I am not just talking about roads and pouring concrete; I am talking about public transport, renewable energy, telecommunications, social infrastructure, pipelines. We came up with a massive list of asks from regional and rural communities as well as cities. There is so much we can do to actually build this nation now for future generations, if we have the courage to make the decisions and get over this obsession with the spin and rhetoric that debt is somehow bad.

I am especially talking about debt raised at historically low interest rates and invested in the right kind of infrastructure with the right process—an independent Infrastructure Australia so that we have a depoliticisation of the way money is allocated and spent in this country, working with markets for bond issuances against certain kinds of expenditure, developing new capital markets. I was pleased that new senator, Senator Hume, has some interesting ideas in this area. You will be pleased that we have something in common there, Mr Acting Deputy President Bernardi, because this is the kind of thing we need to be talking about. While interest rates are at record lows, we can lock in issuances of things like bonds. We can make pools and finance available to state and local governments.

In Tasmania we need $900 million now to invest in water infrastructure. Senator Bushby, through you, Chair, knows all about this: 15 communities in our state do not have clean drinking water. They still have to boil water before they drink it, and they want money. They have not been able to get any money from the federal government. Why don't we have low-interest capital available for local governments and state governments? We have some. They are very targeted and very specific programs where federal government infrastructure spending is targeted at communities around this country, but it is nowhere near enough. We could play a leadership role, if we had the courage, vision and leadership. The Senate select committee that I worked on spent a lot of time looking at this.

Interestingly, Standard & Poor's—we have heard a lot of about AAA credit ratings, Senator O'Sullivan, and no doubt you will be talking about this when you get up—chief economist, Paul Sheard, is quoted in The Guardian today in an article by Martin Farrer in which he talks about the AAA impact on Australia. It says:

He said the federal government had to try to reduce 'bad debt' related to recurrent expenditure but also needed to increase 'good debt' to fund capital spending.

He talks about underinvestment in infrastructure. That is from the credit rating agencies. Yesterday I quoted TD securities—a big article by Jacob Greber in the Financial Reviewalso saying we needed to watch our AAA credit rating, but they excluded specifically investment in productive infrastructure.

There are two articles in two days supporting the Greens push to have a nation-building program to put on the table for this country. I am very pleased to say—and it is very good timing for me today—that there is an excellent article in the Financial Review today by Tim Pallas, the Victorian Treasurer. So all Victorian senators, please take note—unfortunately, Senator Hinch is not here. He wrote an op-ed this morning talking about how Victoria has gone out there and spent a lot of money on productive infrastructure, how it stimulated economic growth in their state and has delivered and in fact improved their credit rating. He says:

The departing Governor of the Reserve Bank, Glenn Stevens, recently called for a more 'nuanced' debate—

and by nuanced, he means a political debate—

about public-sector debt, saying 'the most powerful domestic impetus that comes from low interest rates surely comes when someone has both the balance sheet capacity and the willingness to take on more debt and spend'.

The federal government has the balance sheet capacity to do that, if that pool is taken away from recurrent expenditure and targeted specifically at infrastructure spending.

It goes on:

This is a debate the Victorian Government has been leading for some time, echoing the sentiments of S&P, which in a submission to a Senate Select committee—

which is a committee I chaired—

inquiry talked of the 'productivity effects of high quality infrastructure delivery'. That is, government investment in high quality projects has a direct and positive impact on GDP.

We have consistently maintained that public investment in infrastructure is a key piece of the jobs puzzle, which is why we re-shaped that debate by announcing a 10-year capital plan in the 2016-2017 budget – looking beyond the budget and electoral cycle.

And as the Premier made clear last week, the private sector needs a willing partner in government; one that listens and is prepared to act. Governments need to be willing to roll up their sleeves and get to work.

In other words, the Australian people want to see their government taking an active role in their life, not leaving it to big corporations to make big profits in the hope that some of that is going to trickle down to the economy and to Australians at the bottom of the pile. It does not work, and that is what you are going to get from the Turnbull government—a $50 billion tax cut to big business. That is their GDP stimulating policy—that is it: give businesses a tax cut. Guess what? A lot of these businesses do not pay their fair share of tax already, so why give them another tax cut? This is a more direct way of governments getting out there and spending money where it is needed. Get money moving in this country, create jobs and invest in future generations of Australia, in the right kind of infrastructure and the right kind of projects.

Tim Pallas, the Victorian Treasurer finishes by saying:

While future generations may not have a voice in influencing today's investment decisions, our legacy for them should be a Victorian economy enjoying higher growth potential than if we'd sat on our hands.

We have been sitting on our hands in federal parliament. We have no plan, no vision, under this government for jobs, for stimulating the economy, for sailing us through the doldrums; however, the Greens do have a plan. I am pleased that Mr Shorten in his Press Club speech said that infrastructure could be the one thing in this parliament, the 45th Parliament, where all political parties could work together. This is certainly something that we have been very keen on. We have done a lot of work in this area and we have collected evidence from—Acting Deputy President, you would be quite surprised—many right-wing commentators who also support the Greens' push for an infrastructure spending boost in this country.

We also have revenue-raising, fully costed, through the PBO, policies to raise nearly $140 billion of revenue, Senator O'Sullivan. We have a revenue crisis in this country, because the government does not want to take on the hard decisions. Twenty-four billion dollars that we give to the mining companies in fossil fuel subsidies—guess what? We do not need to take any money off poor Tasmanians; let's take it off wealthy mining companies that get a direct subsidy from taxpayers, and they should.