Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) 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 Foreign Affairs (Senator Payne) to questions without notice asked by Senators McAllister and Watt today relating to the rising cost of living and the economy.

This government is a little bit like the dog that caught the car, isn't it. They went barking and snapping through the election campaign, barking about the Labor Party—and then they won. And, as it turned out, there was absolutely nothing in the bottom drawer. They have captured the government benches, but they have absolutely no idea what to do about the circumstances facing our country. Arguably, there is nothing more important, more critical or more urgent than a national government-led response to the economic circumstances that are facing us. You'd think that would be the priority, coming into this week of parliamentary sittings. But is that what Mr Morrison told us he was interested in? No. Mr Morrison has boasted on this occasion, as he has done on every occasion since he took government, that he is coming into this parliament to set tests for Labor, to play silly games and to construct bills that create wedges for other parliamentarians.

What a sensible, responsible, grown-up government would do is come into this chamber and this parliament with a plan and a serious response to the challenges that face us, because there are very serious economic challenges facing us. But, sadly, there is nothing on offer from the government benches. Economic growth is the slowest it has been in the 10 years since the GFC, wages are stagnant and 1.8 million Australians are out of work or looking for more work. Household debt is high. Living standards are going backwards. We have seen the first per capita income recession in over a decade. Productivity has declined every quarter for the last four quarters.

There is a lot to do, a lot before us, and it is not as though solutions are not on offer. The Reserve Bank governor has been particularly engaged in putting forward his views about what needs to happen. He's urging the government to take action—to bring forward expenditure on infrastructure—and still Mr Morrison fails to act. Seven times since the election in May, the Reserve Bank has called on the government to fast-track infrastructure spending to stimulate the economy—17 times in the last two years. You'd think that would be a wake-up call, wouldn't you? You'd think that would be a message that something needs to be done. But right now the government are sitting on their hands.

Let's be clear about what the Reserve Bank are saying. They are saying that, with interest rates at very, very low levels—a third of what they were during the GFC—the capacity for monetary policy to respond to the conditions is very constrained. Government needs to step in. That is the message that the Reserve Bank is sending the government, and so it might have been the subject for a serious response. It might have been the subject for a parliamentary response, but that's not what we've got. All we've got is endless political game playing.

I guess that's what you get when you elect an adman as Prime Minister. You don't get someone engaged in serious policy problems. You don't get grown-up government. You just get a silly campaign. Unfortunately for all the Australians out there who are doing it tough, who find themselves struggling to pay bills and wondering if they're going to have a job or wondering how to get more work, they'll find no answers whatsoever from the people on the other side of this chamber.

Master Builders Australia were out there today. In the last little while, the excuse offered by the government for why they can't do anything to bring forward infrastructure funding is that there are constraints. Well, they've absolutely belled the cat on that one, haven't they, because Master Builders Australia have made it very clear that, yes, there are some constraints—constraints in Sydney and Melbourne. But in a range of other sectors there is plenty of capacity and there is the opportunity to stimulate the economy in our regions—in places other than Melbourne and Sydney. For a government that prides itself on its work in, and likes to talk a big game about, the regions, it is incredible that that advice from Masters Builders Australia isn't being heeded. It's the same advice, incidentally, that the government has heard from the RBA—that there is room to stimulate the economy.

Why won't they act? It's because they have no plan. They have no vision. They are stuck with an economic textbook somebody gave them in 1980, and they don't have the imagination to adapt themselves to current circumstances. They're playing political games instead of dealing with the very real economic challenges that face us now. (Time expired)