Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to join this debate on the lack of any plan by the Morrison government to address slowing economic growth and stagnant wages.

Last week's national accounts figures were damning. They confirmed what most of us already knew and what the government quite clearly is still in denial about, and that is that our economy is in trouble: the slowest growth rates since the GFC, 1.4 per cent year on year; real wage growth stagnating since 2013, averaging half a per cent per annum for the last five years; underemployment stuck at record high levels, above eight per cent—in fact, I think it's 8.4 per cent; and unemployment growing. And the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, whose job it is to manage the health of the Australian economy, is now screaming out for help. What more does Mr Morrison need to know to go, 'We're in trouble, folks. Action is needed'? Despite multiple cuts to the cash rate by the RBA, the economy isn't changing course.

What we need is fiscal stimulus, a government plan to resuscitate the economy. But where is that plan? What does the government intend to do? Drug testing people on income support is not a plan. Cracking down on the union movement isn't a plan. Axing another $1.5 billion in funding from the Australian Public Service as a last-minute election commitment is not a plan. These are nothing more than the same old discredited trickle-down tropes. What we need is bold ideas about how to genuinely lift aggregate demand.

We should be increasing Newstart and youth allowance immediately, by at least $75 a week. We know that people on income support put their money straight back into local economies, and that would stimulate the economy better than tax cuts for the already well-off. If you look at the Deloitte Access Economics report Analysis of the impact of raising benefit rates, it found the following impacts of raising Newstart by $75 a week. It would cost around $3.3 billion a year. However, it would boost the Australian economy by over $4 billion as a result of extra spending—and, oh, by the way, drag up, out of poverty, all those people struggling on Newstart. And I know that they will spend every cent they get because they need it to address key things that they don't spend money on because their income is so low. We know that it will boost spending because people living below the poverty line will spend the extra money on those essential goods and services, and they will spend it in local communities. Deloitte found the extra spending would create some 12,000 jobs—at the same time, helping people struggling in poverty. They also found, as the report says:

Total real wages being paid to Australians would therefore lift by around 0.2% … Similarly, the stronger economy would boost corporate profits, with that latter boost also running at close to 0.2%.

Finally, the stronger economy (more jobs, higher wages, stronger profits) would mean that the Federal Government would raise about an extra $1.0 billion in taxes, while State and Territory Government revenues would increase by some $0.25 billion.

Seems to me a pretty good investment—not only are you helping people in the community, you're also boosting our economy. Our community is expecting nothing less than a commitment by government to people and to those on Newstart. We've got the Reserve Bank governor, John Howard, the Business Council, NGOs—you name it; the list is growing—and they are all calling for a $75 increase to Newstart.

We need to have a real plan for wage growth. We should be reversing the cuts to penalty rates that went through in July, lifting the minimum wage to 60 per cent of the median full-time wage, and removing public sector wage caps. We should be creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs by investing in clean, green, climate-fighting infrastructure, like public transport projects such as Melbourne Metro 2 in Melbourne and the Thirroul rail tunnel between Wollongong and Sydney, dramatically cutting both pollution and travel times. We should be investing in a 100 per cent renewable energy grid, with dramatic upgrades to electricity generation, transmission and storage infrastructure. We should be building a 21st-century fast-charging network to support the transition to electric vehicles, and 500,000 new energy-efficient public homes to alleviate the housing crisis. Again, we should be helping people, achieving a boost to the economy but also helping people that need it. We should create a national nature fund, reversing cuts to Landcare and seeing over $2 billion invested in our regions each and every year, to bring an end to the extinction crisis and employ tens of thousands of workers in environmental restoration.

This is what sensible fiscal policy looks like. This is a plan. It's a plan for what an economy could look like, a clean, green economy that supports the people in that economy—in other words, putting people and the environment first—and an economy actually doing what it should be doing, which is supporting people and the planet. We need bold ideas in line with what the experts are saying. Right now it's the Greens who have a plan to address these issues. We are putting forward ideas for genuine plans for jobs, a genuine plan for wage growth, and a genuine plan to build a zero-emission economy. This is what we need to be doing to protect our community, our planet and our economy. We need a strong economy so that we can make sure that people in our community are looked after and our planet is looked after.

But this government's plan—I suppose you could say it's a plan—is a plan to demonise those on income support. It's a plan to distract people by raising this fear, yet again, of drug testing, penalising people who have an addiction, which is an issue that should be treated as a health issue. This government want to roll out the cashless debit card across the country. That's a plan; it's a plan to demonise people. It's a plan to limit people's cash to make it harder for some of the most vulnerable members of our community. As the Consumer Action Network has pointed out, the cashless debit card makes it harder for people. If they haven't got cash, it is harder for them to keep up. The government have no plan for our community or for a safe, strong, caring community that looks after its most vulnerable. They need to throw out the drug-testing plan. They need to raise Newstart instantly by injecting $4 billion. (Time expired)