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

That contribution to our debate after question time was an embarrassment for a government that has no plan. The only plan that was referenced there at all was the announcement schedule, where the government goes out and makes an announcement day after day. But Australians are starting to wake up to this government. They are desperate to hear that the government has a plan, because they know it will affect their life, but there is no plan.

I rise, like my colleagues, to take note of answers given by the Minister for Finance regarding this truly terrible day for the Australian people impacted by what's going on in our economy. As was forecast in recent days, the economy has headed into a recession for the first time in nearly three decades. The jobs figures are more diabolical than even I feared, with another 400,000 Australians predicted to lose their job by Christmas. This is indeed, as Senator Watt said, the worst recession in nearly 100 years. Memories and images echoing the Great Depression are acquiring a 2020 makeover in the lives of our citizenry right now. So many Australians—far too many Australians, including my own children and their friends—have a recession in sight now. They have no idea what it's like. We've had 30 years of growth constructed by great policymaking by Labor leaders, kicked off by Hawke and Keating. Right now, we are witnessing—our children are witnessing—the long, long queues outside Centrelink, right across this country. They're driving down main streets and seeing small businesses shuttered, right across the country. They're coming to know and see that the Australians who they believed would always have a job don't have a job, and businesses are disappearing overnight.

Today, it's been confirmed that the GDP, the gross domestic product of this country, has collapsed by seven per cent through the June quarter. That figure, a seven per cent decline in the wealth of our nation, has been unheard of since the Great Depression, over 90 years ago. The pandemic has, indeed, caused a steep drop in private household expenditure and that has had massive economic impacts. And I will go to what Senator Cormann said that was of incredible concern to me. He said, 'Yes, private household expenditure has dropped.' He said, 'People have stopped going out to restaurants and they're not going to cafes,' as if that's all that's wrong with the economy. If that's all that Senator Cormann thinks is wrong with the economy when we have a seven per cent contraction in GDP, then we're in for some bumpy times. I'll tell you what he gave away today. He predicted what the next steps in the government's response are going to be. Watch out for these words: 'adjust', 'new normal' and 'new baseline', because that's what Senator Cormann said today. He said that this is the new world and we're going to have to adjust to a new kind of Australia. When he says that you need to adjust, what he's saying to my children and their friends and people who have lost their jobs—the millions of Australians who've lost their jobs; the 400,000 people who are set to lose their jobs before Christmas—is: 'Get used to it.'

The Liberal-National coalition, the government of Australia, the one that goes out and tells you they're all about jobs and growth—they've got a new normal coming your way. They heralded it today. Get ready for the adjustment. Get ready for the new normal. Get ready for the new baseline where you and people you care about in your family are unemployed for a long time. And to get you ready for that we had Senator Ruston indicating that, even though she has the powers—she was given those powers by delegation, by legislation that went through this chamber and the other place earlier this year—to set the amount of money to be given to Australians, she gave no hope, no heart, no succour to the troubled world of Australians who are trying to balance their books— (Time expired)

Question agreed to.