Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Road Safety) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to have the opposition's 2020-21 budget reply speech incorporated into Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

My fellow Australians.

We live in a great country.

Amidst all the chaos and hardship that has shaken our world in 2020 - there is nowhere else we would rather be.

The credit for that, as always, doesn't belong to the politicians here tonight.

It belongs to the people of Australia.

We are coming through this pandemic because of their hard work, their sacrifices, their sense of community.

Their willingness to put not just their friends and neighbours, but people they have not met and probably will never meet, ahead of themselves.

Their values. Australian values.

That we look after each other.

And – it's that spirit, those values, which should define what happens next.

Because the challenge – and the opportunity – facing us now is not just a matter of getting things back to the way they were.

We have to aim higher than that, strive for more than that.

We have a once-in-a-generation chance to rebuild our economy and our country for the better.

To launch a recovery that delivers a stronger, fairer and more secure future, for all Australians.

This Budget fails the test.

The Budget reflects the Government's character of being guided by short term politics, not long term vision.

Our economy was already struggling coming into the crisis. Slow growth, flat wages, declining productivity, business investment going backwards, a doubling of debt.

Now they are cutting wage subsidies, slashing unemployment benefits back and have no plan for childcare, aged care or social housing.

This Budget leaves people behind.

Women have suffered most during the pandemic, but are reduced to a footnote. The best the Government can offer is they can drive on a road.

And if someone is over 35 they have certainly been left behind.

This week their wage subsidy was cut.

In March their wage subsidy disappears.

If they are unemployed they get $40 a day and are forced into poverty.

Then they will compete to get a job with people who will have their wages subsidised.

A quadruple whammy.

The Morrison recession will be deeper and longer because of this Budget.

Mr Albanese was brought up to look on the bright side.

His mother, Maryanne, was a great optimist.

She was crippled with rheumatoid arthritis and other health conditions, which meant constant pain and long stints in hospital.

A single mum who raised him in public housing and relied on a disability pension, she did it tough.

But she always had a smile on her face, she never complained about her lot in life.

Like every Australian parent, her greatest aspiration - and the reason for all her sacrifice – was to make sure her child had a better quality of life and greater opportunity.

That aspiration for others has been on full display in 2020.

Volunteers fighting bushfires.

Healthcare workers fending-off a pandemic.

Cleaners and supermarket workers and truckies working around the clock to keep our economy going.

Teachers re-defining education, practically overnight.

Farmers and regional communities who had already copped drought and bushfires.

Small business reinventing themselves - and locals backing them in.

Trade unions agreeing to temporarily put aside hard fought industrial gains, to maintain jobs and keep businesses going.

Public servants reminding us of the honourable profession they belong to.

Australians rallying to help each other through tough times.

But if this crisis has reinforced what we know is good about our country…

…it has also revealed what is wrong with our economy.

The Budget figures tell the story.

An end to 3 decades of economic growth.

A million unemployed, with 160,000 more by Christmas.

A trillion dollars of debt.

Debt which had already doubled under this Government now 4 times that which the Coalition inherited.

And there were the damning silences.

Too many Australians are in insecure work - the first to be laid off, with low wages and few entitlements.

… and this Budget said nothing about that.

Too many women are shut off from economic opportunity - earning less and retiring with less.

… and this Budget said nothing to change that.

Too many family budgets pushed to breaking point by the cost of childcare.

… and this Budget said nothing to help with that.

Too many older Australians who built this country are being treated without the respect and dignity they deserve.

Too many older Australians are lonely prisoners of a broken aged care system.

Facilities run for the highest profits at the lowest standards.

A care economy workforce in childcare, aged care and disability care that is overworked and underpaid.

And Tuesday's Budget said nothing and did nothing about that.

How can the Government push the national debt to a trillion dollars and yet leave these fundamental problems unresolved?

Tonight, the Labor Leader, Mr Albanese, outlined how we can change this for the better.

How we can emerge from this crisis with a stronger economy and a fairer society.

The pandemic has shown that Labor's values of fairness, security and the power of government to change lives for the better are the right values in a crisis.

They are also the right values for the recovery.

Throughout this crisis, Mr Albanese and Labor have been constructive.

As the party that led Australia safely through the Global Financial Crisis, we understand, that in the middle of an emergency, the priority is on urgent action.

Still, we sought to make improvements including arguing for wage subsidies, which the Prime Minister rejected as "very dangerous".

We wanted casuals, universities and the arts to be included. This would have saved tens of thousands of jobs.

We warned of the damage caused by a smash-and-grab on superannuation, forcing desperate people to raid their own retirement savings while they waited for support to arrive.

We called for Telehealth and mental health support.

We backed the trade unions' call for the Government to introduce a national scheme of paid pandemic leave so no-one had to choose between turning up to work sick or putting food on the table.

Our constructive approach contrasts with the Coalition during the GFC which voted against the Rudd Government's economic stimulus to protect jobs – and complained about the debt they inherited which was one quarter of the debt created by the Morrison Government.

The only legacy delivered by this Budget is trillion dollar debt. A reform desert.

The decisions in this budget should be about setting Australia on a course for the next decade and beyond.

And when those decisions are wasteful, or unfair, or short-sighted or just plain wrong…then it's not the government who pays in the long run, it's the whole country.

Just look at the NBN.

The Liberals have wasted years trashing Labor's plan for broadband delivered by fibre to the home and business.

They went out and bought 50,000 kilometres of copper – enough to wrap around the entire planet – so they could build a slow, third-rate network that was out of date before it started.

Now instead of leading the world on internet speed, business connectivity and online learning, Australia is playing catch-up.

If we're going to come out of this recession stronger and fairer, then our country needs a plan to ensure no-one is left behind, and no-one is held back.

Our plan to take Australia from recession to recovery is this:

Rehire our workers.

Rewire our economy.

Recharge workforce participation of women.

And rebuild our nation.

Labor knows education is the key to opportunity.

Our schools, TAFE and vocational education and universities are vital national institutions.

And making sure a quality education is accessible and affordable for every Australian doesn't just open doors of opportunity for individuals, it makes us a smarter, more productive, more future-ready country.

And investing in education needs to begin at the beginning – with quality childcare.

We all know how much our kids change and learn and grow before they're at school.

Ninety per cent of human brain development occurs in the first five years of life.

What children learn at childcare is so vital for giving our kids the best possible start. But the current system of caps and subsidies and thresholds isn't just confusing and costly, it actually penalises the families it's meant to help.

Right around Australia, instead of childcare supporting families where both parents want to work …the costs – and the tax system – actively discourage this.

And - as is too often the case – it's working mums who cop the worst of it.

For millions of working women, it's simply not worth working more than three days a week.

This derails careers, it deprives working women of opportunities they've earned.

And it costs workplaces – not just day-to-day productivity but years of valuable experience and knowledge and skills.

If Mr Albanese is elected Prime Minister, he's going to fix this.

Tonight, Mr Albanese announced that a Labor Government will, from 1 July 2022, remove the annual cap on the childcare subsidy, eliminating once and for all, the disincentive to work more hours.

And we will increase the maximum Child Care subsidy to 90 per cent - cutting costs for 97 per cent of all families in the system.

And we will order the ACCC to design a price regulation mechanism that will ensure every taxpayer dollar spent flows directly through to savings for Australian families.

This is real reform. It will boost women's workforce participation, boost productivity and get Australia working again.

Building a childcare system that works for families will turbocharge productivity in workplaces, delivering a much-needed boost in economic growth of up to 4 billion dollars a year.

For Mr Albanese, the principle is very simple:

Early education is vital for our children's future.

And childcare is an essential service for families – and for the economy.

So our long term goal – and the mission we will set for the Productivity Commission which will be asked to report in the first term of a Labor Government – is to investigate moving to a 90 per cent subsidy for child care for every Australian family.

Labor created Medicare - universal health care.

We created the NDIS - universal support for people with disability.

We created superannuation – universal retirement savings for workers.

And – if Mr Albanese is Prime Minister – he will make quality, affordable childcare universal too.

This global pandemic has exposed the terrible damage seven years of Liberal Government has done to Australian manufacturing.

Mr Albanese doesn't want our country to always be the last link in a worldwide supply chain.

His vision is for us to have the skills and smarts and people and industry to make things here and sell them on the global market.

So, tonight he talked about Labor's plan for a Future Made in Australia.

A mass mobilisation of resources, an across-the-board strategy for:

- Job creation

- Training and skills

- Lower energy prices

- Infrastructure

- Government purchasing

- Manufacturing and construction

A plan to grow our economy out of this recession – and build for the future too.

The first policy Mr Albanese announced as Labor leader was to build on the success of the Infrastructure Australia model and create Jobs and Skills Australia.

This is about joining-up the needs of our economy now – with training opportunities for the future.

We have a shortage of nurses, welders, brick layers, engineers, and hairdressers.

Yet under this government, there are 140,000 fewer people doing an apprenticeship or traineeship than there were seven years ago.

We want to equip every Australian with the skills for a good secure job.

And we want to make sure every employer has access to a well-trained Australian workforce.

And right at the heart of our plan for skills and training is the great institution of public TAFE.

But there's more government can – and should – do.

Every year, the Commonwealth spends billions of taxpayer dollars on building and upgrading roads, maintaining railways and repairing bridges.

To deliver maximum public value for money, Labor will create an Australian Skills Guarantee.

On every major work site receiving Federal Government funding, one out of 10 workers employed will be an apprentice, a trainee or cadet.

These common sense measures will train tens of thousands of workers.

We will also consider how this principle can be extended to Federal Government subsidised sectors like aged care, disability care and childcare in co-operation with providers.

And we'll bring the same approach to defence acquisitions too.

Over the next decade, there is $270 billion of defence spending on the books.

These investments in national security should also deliver a dividend for national skills, training, research and manufacturing.

A Labor Government will implement concrete rules to maximise local content and create local jobs.

At best, the Liberals' approach is all over the shop when it comes to Australian content.

Remember when one of this Liberal Government's Defence Ministers said he wouldn't trust Australians to build a canoe?

Australians will never forget that it was this Government that drove Holden, Ford and other car makers out of Australia, taking tens of thousands of jobs in auto manufacturing, servicing and the supply chain with them.

This wasn't just dumb and devastating in the short term.

Cutting down the Australian auto industry also cut Australia off from the next round of opportunities, dealing us out of a new wave of technology that could have been made in Elizabeth and Altona and Geelong but instead is being made in Detroit and Tokyo.

It's the same at a state level.

Liberal Governments have consistently said we can't build trains here.

And yet the ones they've bought from overseas have been too long for our stations, or too narrow for our tracks, or too tall for our tunnels.

Last December, Mr Albanese visited the Downer EDI site in Maryborough, Queensland, where skilled Aussie workers are refitting rail carriages purchased from overseas by the former Newman LNP Government.

This work is being done in a factory that's been building quality trains since the 19th Century.

Our country has the skills and the knowhow. What's missing is a government that believes in manufacturing and has a plan to deliver.

Tonight, Mr Albanese announced that a Labor Government will create a National Rail Manufacturing Plan.

We will provide leadership to the states and work with industry to identify and optimise the opportunities to build trains here in Australia - for freight and for public transport.

Labor will invest in the skills and research and training to kickstart the next generation of Australian manufacturing jobs.

And we'll deliver the affordable, reliable energy to power industry into the future.

The Liberals have had 22 energy policies in 8 years.

And all they have to show for it are higher electricity prices and higher emissions.

Australia can do so much better.

We can be a renewable energy superpower, with clean energy powering a new era of metal manufacturing and hydrogen production.

Labor has a clear target to tackle Climate Change - net zero carbon pollution by 2050.

Every State and Territory Government - Labor and Liberal - supports this goal.

The Business Council, the Australian Industry Group, the Australian Energy Council and the National Farmers Federation agree on it.

Qantas and Santos and BHP and a host of other major companies all back it too.

Everyone but the Morrison Government, which is frozen in time while the world warms around it.

Of course, there's a lot more we can do right now to make energy more affordable.

Australia's electricity network was designed for a different century.

For a time when solar panels ran pocket calculators, not the 1 in 4 households which have rooftop solar.

The current network takes no account of the rise of renewables as the cheapest new energy source, and doesn't help link these new sources up to the national grid.

A Labor Government will tackle this head on.

We will establish a new Rewiring the Nation Corporation to rebuild and modernise the national energy grid.

By using the Commonwealth's ability to borrow at lower interest rates, it will be done at the lowest possible cost.

The projects needed to rebuild the grid have all been identified in the Australian Energy Market Operator's Integrated System Plan.

The planning work is done.

Rebuilding the grid will create thousands of jobs – particularly in regional Australia - and deliver up to $40 billion in benefits.

Fixing transmission is technology neutral and will allow the market to drive least cost, new energy production.

Reforming childcare, rebuilding the National Energy Grid and revitalising Australian manufacturing are at the heart of Labor's plans for job creation over the next decade

But in the middle of the first recession in 30 years – we know Australia needs a plan to create jobs, right now.

One of the fastest ways to lift economic growth and get tradies back on the tools is to invest in social housing.

There's 100,000 social housing dwellings around the country that are in urgent need of repair.

The roof leaks, they're full of mould or damp, the plumbing isn't up to scratch.

If these were MPs offices they'd be fixed overnight.

These are people's homes – and they're a job creation plan ready and waiting in every city and town.

Tradies could be ordering from suppliers today, they could be on site, tomorrow.

And the pipeline of work doesn't stop at existing houses that need fixing.

There are new houses that need to be built too.

200,000 Australians are on waiting lists for social housing.

Mr Albanese grew up in public housing.

He knows when someone does not have much, having a roof over their head provides security and makes all the difference.

So many economists have identified investing in social housing as the best way to provide immediate stimulus to the economy.

It would create thousands of jobs in construction and the trades…

…and just like for Mr Albanese's mum, it would give thousands of people a better life.

The pandemic has exposed Australia's vulnerability.

This has particularly impacted the elderly with more than 670 deaths in aged care, in a system described by the Royal Commission in their one word title of the Interim Report issued last year, as "neglect".

This Budget has done nothing to address this neglect and nothing to ensure aged care residents have enough nurses, carers and other staff that they need and deserve.

The Royal Commission declared last week there was still no plan for aged care.

It is also the case that our pandemic preparedness was poor. The last national pandemic preparedness exercise was run by the Rudd Government in 2008.

A Labor Government will establish an Australian Centre for Disease Control to bring us into line with other advanced economies.

On Tuesday night, Australia needed a plan to seize the economic opportunities of the next decade.

We are, after all, located in the fastest growing region of the world in human history.

Instead, we got an incoherent grab bag, fixated on the photo opportunities of next week.

And that's the defining flaw of this government – and this Prime Minister.

They think an announcement is the end in itself.

Always there for the photo opp, never there for the follow up.

We see it time and time again.

Remember the "Back in Black" mugs they were selling last Budget, ahead of delivering the biggest deficit in Australian history?

Perhaps the mugs should have said "dirty deeds, done dirt cheap".

When we look at the waste and the grift and the pork barreling exposed by the Australian National Audit Office that's had its funding cut in this Budget as payback.

The Sports Rorts scandal

The $30 million paid for airport land that was worth just $3 million …

Two years after announcing they would support a National Integrity Commission, the legislation is as visible as a Morrison Government surplus.

A Labor Government will deliver a national anti-corruption commission to restore faith in our democracy.

In seven years, the gap between what they've promised on infrastructure – and what they've delivered – is nearly $7 billion.

They turn up, they turn over the first sod and years later weeds are growing on the empty lot.

And in spite of a Budget drowning in red ink, there were no new game changing infrastructure projects funded.

As Australia's first Infrastructure Minister, Mr Albanese knows what a missed opportunity this budget represents.

Then there's the Emergency Response Fund.

This $4 billion fund was created in the aftermath of the catastrophic bushfires with $200 million available each financial year from 2019-2020.

It's for recovery, as well as resilience in the lead up to bushfire seasons.

Not a dollar has been spent. Not one.

This week Mr Albanese spoke to Zoey Salucci in Cobargo.

The Prime Minister should remember her. She was the young pregnant woman who had lost her home and asked for more help for the Rural Fire Service. She was reluctant to shake his hand.

Zoey's son Phoenix turned 6 months old this week, named after the Greek mythological bird that obtains new life by rising from the ashes.

When Phoenix was born, Zoey, her husband and their two year old daughter Uma, were still living in a van. She despairs that so many of her community are still living in temporary caravans on land that is yet to be cleared.

Yet the $4 billion funding announced remains untouched.

That's why the true test of this Budget isn't this week's headlines.

It's not the rhetoric or the promises.

It's whether money reaches the people who need it.

Australia is at a crossroad.

It's not of our choosing but the choices we make could change everything.

This is an opportunity to reset and renew.

There was a time when the average wage let an Australian buy a house. When secure jobs with sick pay were the norm.

Before the balance tipped so far one way that ordinary people were left vulnerable.

Let's use this opportunity to get the balance right again.

Let's put security back into work – so that people don't have to choose between their bank account and their health.

Let's transform childcare so that it's affordable and accessible to every family.

Let's fix our aged care system so that it's driven by dignity and care, not profit.

The choices we make now will define who we are in the future, so Australians should ask themselves – what sort of country do they want?

Do we want to return to the same work insecurity, the same cuts to TAFE and unis, the same 2nd rate services for the bush, the same stale arguments over climate change?

Mr Albanese wants us to do better.

He wants a country that makes things, creates wealth – and shares it.

A country where the next generation inherit opportunity and prosperity – not debt and doubt.

A country which respects our farmers and miners in the regions and our cleaners and musicians in the cities.

A country that respects those who've come across the sea to enrich our society – and one that recognises the privilege of having the world's oldest continuous culture and recognises First Nations people in our Constitution – and gives them a Voice to this Parliament.

A country where – when the going gets tough – government is on the Australian people's side.

That's the Australia Mr Albanese believes in.

That's the better future he wants us to build together.

The year 2020 has been the year from hell.

But during this calamity we learnt a lot about ourselves. And about each other.

A man called Tom Uren was the closest person in Mr Albanese's life he had to a father figure.

Tom fought in World War 2, he spent his 21st birthday as a Japanese prisoner of war on the notorious Thai-Burma Railway.

He never talked much about what he went through.

But he always said Australians survived because of a simple code:

The healthy looked after the sick, the strong looked after the weak, the young looked after the old.

Those values are at the heart of what it is to be an Australian.

And those values are why Mr Albanese is optimistic about our country's future.

Because just as our people have rallied to each other and risen to the challenges of this pandemic.

Mr Albanese knows Australians can seize the opportunities of the recovery, seize the chance to rebuild and renew our country.

But people can't do it on their own.

Mr Albanese's mum battled a ton of adversity to give him opportunities she never had.

But government played a part too: it put a roof over their head, it gave him an education and a start.

That's why Mr Albanese wants to be Prime Minister.

Because he knows government has the power to break down barriers of disadvantage, to change lives for the better.

He's seen it. He's lived it.

And that's what Labor's plans are all about.

Creating jobs for today – and training our people for tomorrow.

Making quality child care a right for all, not a luxury for some.

Rebuilding our manufacturing sector.

And powering our recovery with clean energy

Tonight, Mr Albanese talked about how we can make this once-in-a-century crisis the beginning of a new era of Australian prosperity and Australian fairness.

With the right plans, the right policies – and the right leadership – Mr Albanese truly believes our country can make this moment our own.

Strength and fairness.

We can beat this recession, we can launch a recovery and we can build a future where no-one is held back and no-one is left behind.