Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Productivity Commission Amendment (Addressing Inequality) Bill 2017. I introduced the bill last year in Senator McAllister's absence, and I make it clear to the Senate that Senator McAllister will be closing the debate on this bill, not me. Without doubt, economic inequality is the major issue people are coming to talk to us about at the moment, whether it is equality of opportunity for people to live their dreams or equality of outcomes in terms of a happy and healthy life for people and their families. Economic inequality is biting in this country. We need governments that are serious about identifying the causes and putting in place policies to address them. Since the great reforms after the Second World War, all Australians have had the chance to dream big, to work hard and to achieve their goals. Social mobility has been within reach of all of us. Australia's society has been defined by the fair go for all, where people have both an equality of opportunity and an equality of outcomes across a range of measures.

But this fair go is slipping. The Chifley Research Centre has done some great work identifying the facts on inequality. Labour earnings are the largest component of income for most Australians and, therefore, the most important driver of income inequality. The labour earnings share of national income has been steadily declining since the 1980s, and average wages today are growing more slowly than productivity, which is contributing to inequality in the short term and threatening future productivity growth in the long term. It means slower growth for all and stagnant living standards for all.

Worse, time and time again our rural, remote and regional areas are ignored by this government. It is a government that makes countless promises for the regions but whose actions are completely out of step with what regional Australia needs. It is a government that talks big about supporting the regions but which fails to make headway in improving the lives of workers in regional Australia.

In my home region, the north-west and west coasts of Tasmania, our people have access to the most fertile soils, the cleanest airs, predictable seasons, rich mineral resources and the most picturesque coastline. It should be a place where people live an honest life, work hard, earn a decent wage, afford a home and raise a family in safety and comfort, and where their children can dream big and achieve those dreams. While this is still the case for many, there is a rising number for whom this is getting out of reach. While it's a beautiful place for many, they're trapped and isolated. Our services are stretched, education and health outcomes are low, wage growth is low, unemployment is high, casualisation of the workforce is high and people face difficulties securing a home, securing a place to live and somewhere to base their family. This leads to unimaginable stress entrenching inequality and disadvantage, making our homes and communities less safe and less happy.

So what do we do? First of all, we must acknowledge the problem. We must be firm that tackling inequality is a priority for our society and we must get to work, understanding what drives inequality and what can be done to reduce it—not to take more off some but to ensure that, when the pie grows, everyone has a chance to get more. We heard Prime Minister Morrison, when he was Treasurer, saying that inequality isn't getting worse, despite his chief macroeconomic adviser, the Governor of the Reserve Bank, saying the exact opposite. Time and time again, ideology over outcome prevails for the Liberals and Nationals; political expediency over people. In this case, it is a blind allegiance to trickle-down free market economics, an ideology that hurts working people, is bad for economic growth and is bad for our standard of living going forward. The Reserve Bank Governor was clear. When asked if he thought inequality was rising or getting better in Australia, Dr Lowe said, 'Well, it's risen,' and Dr Lowe addressed the critical issue: the Chifley Research Centre has also identified that wealth inequality has become more pronounced in the last few years. People who own certain assets have seen their value shoot up, while those with little or no assets effectively fall behind.

What we saw in the recent Braddon by-election should be a wake-up call to Prime Minister Morrison: support this bill, support working Australians and stop prioritising the big end of town. The debate of the by-election was between a Shorten Labor Party that pledged greater investment in our hospitals, schools and TAFEs, greater support for pensioners and greater support for our communities, compared to the Liberals and Nationals whose priority was a $17 billion taxpayer funded handout to the big banks at the expense of working people and retirees. While the Liberals and Nationals are prepared to just fob off inequality as something that doesn't matter, Labor is interested in actually identifying the problems and working across the community to identify pathways to fixing them. Instead of working together, Prime Minister Morrison just turns his back at a problem we all know is getting worse—a problem about which we know we need more data. At present, despite the countless reports reams of economic analysis published every year, there isn't one body in Australia charged with examining economic inequality and its impacts on our community. Without collating and analysing such data from an inequality perspective, governments will struggle to respond effectively and the community may remain unaware of the extent of the problems. This bill will fix that.

The five-yearly inequality report will do three things. First, it will lead to the establishment of measures for economic inequality. Second, it will assess the effects of economic inequality on the economy and on individuals. Finally, the report will assess the effect of existing government programs on economic inequality. This is a critical part of the policy development cycle. Simply, are the programs reducing or increasing in equality and are the programs creating any unintended circumstances?

Which body should conduct this analysis? This bill proposes the Productivity Commission do so. Currently, the Productivity Commission Act includes a set of policy guidelines that the commission must have regard to. This includes a wide variety of social, environmental and economic considerations. I want to stress that, given the political nature of the concept of inequality, this bill doesn't prescribe a specific definition. We don't need to be exclusive in our definition here. The proposed inequality report should consider matters relating to both inequality of opportunity and inequality of outcome.

The Productivity Commission must take a holistic approach and examine a range of measures and a range of factors in their research and analysis. If the government can take the time to understand that, perhaps they could agree to support this bill, because surely they are hearing the same concerns from the Australian public: that inequality is on the rise and that government must support further understanding of both the causes and outcomes associated with inequality. Instead of the divisive politics of fear, why not try the inclusive politics of hope? Instead of marginalising some of the most vulnerable in our community and instead of attacking whole ethnic and religious minorities, why not try to build connections? Why start with hate? The Longman and Braddon by-elections demonstrated that the current rhetoric from the Liberals and Nationals isn't working. It does them no good and it definitely does our communities no good.