Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

It's better than usual, and I'm being kind because we're heading towards the end of the parliamentary term and I've enjoyed your contributions over the years. There's plenty of time, but I get the sense that time goes on, and you get a sense of history about these things.

One of the reasons that the inflation challenge has been tough for Australia is that it came off the back of a trillion dollars in debt with nothing to show for it from the Morrison government. It was a trillion dollars in debt with nothing to show for it. There was no infrastructure, nothing. Secondly, there had been a decade of the lowest ever productivity growth on record. Admittedly, it was sitting against the back of a decade before it that wasn't too flash either. Energy policy was in tatters. Amongst the investment community around the world, Australia was a laughing stock on energy policy. We'd managed to construct an energy policy where four gigawatts of electricity generation were decommissioned and only one gigawatt of generation was introduced. It was a debacle. And everybody wonders why electricity prices have had it tougher from inflationary impacts than everybody would have hoped for. Well, that's what happens when you've got low productivity and you don't build generation capacity. It's cactus. There's a lot of work to do. I don't agree with Senator Rennick's prescriptions for how we deal with these challenges, but I do like his sense of urgency, and I do like the fact that he makes the argument.

There was inflation with a six in front of it; $1 trillion in debt and nothing to show for it and real wages in long-term stagnation. These characters over here pray for real wages to decline. When they were in government, they loved it because it was a design feature of their system. When they're in opposition, they want them to fall so they can make a political point. There are only two things that make these characters smile: (1) when real wages decline and people are impoverished, and they just hope that they can make a political point out of it; and (2), when they're pulling the wings off flies. Misery loves company—well, there they are. If something goes wrong, there's johnny-on-the-spot trying to make the point, the partisanship, instead of focusing on the things that can actually be done to make it better.

Here we are with inflation a third of what it was and falling. Real wages are rising. Living standards are rising. The lowest average unemployment rate of any—