Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

Budgets are more than just economic statements; they are more than just collections of numbers and lines on a page; they are more than collective totals of spending against collective totals of income. Budget documents are statements of values. They are statements of choices and behind every dollar spent and every dollar of revenue gained is an active choice by a government. The Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook presented this evening is a clear statement of the choices taken and of the values held by the Abbott government. The government's choices could not be clearer—a budget debt blow-out, stagnant employment and the pathway to more and more cuts.

This document is the strongest piece of evidence that this is not the government that Australia voted for. This document represents one of the greatest and fastest budget blow-outs I have seen. In just the 101 short days the government has been in office their deficit has grown by $167 million a day. When the true state of the books was released during the caretaker period—prepared not by politicians but by public servants—the deficit was over 50 per cent lower. This stunning $17 billion deficit explosion has been fuelled by hasty spending, tax breaks to millionaires and a cash payout of billions to the Reserve Bank. All of these were decisions purely by the Abbott government. These are not decisions that the government can try and sheet home to the Labor Party. These are their decisions and their decisions alone. The government are responsible for their own actions.

There are some things you will not find in the MYEFO. You will not find a plan to invest in our domestic car manufacturing sector. You will not find a plan for a new jobs program in Shepparton or a plan to support workers who are now out of a job. The government did not tell the Australian people before the election that, just months into their first term, they would push Holden over a cliff, daring them to leave the country, and then sit back on their hands and let Toyota shut up shop. They did not tell us that 7,000 jobs linked to the car sector would be put at risk because of their reckless behaviour.

The hapless Minister for Industry did not tell his own electorate of Groom that 400-odd jobs in the car industry in the electorate would be at risk under the Abbott government. In fact, just this morning the hapless industry minister was on the ABC, on Fran Kelly's program, and it took him just until the second sentence of his first answer to blame the Labor Party for his own disregard for the car manufacturing sector. This is from a minister who has lost every cabinet battle he has walked into. He has yet to find an industry that he did not let fail or an Australian job that he did not let fall on his watch. There was one moment, though, where the minister did get it right. He was asked if there would be more investment in skills and training, and for TAFE and apprentices, in the budget. And what was his answer? It was: 'Look, sorry, but you're talking the Labor way.' That I agree with 100 per cent.

It is the Labor way to invest in jobs and skills. It is the Labor way to grow and support our technical colleges, to boost the skills base of the nation, to see the national workforce develop new skills and to modernise jobs for the future. We are a country of high technical industry, of engineers, of resource managers. We are a nation of scientists and creativity. We are a nation of architects and big thinkers alike. We are a nation that believes in a fair go for all, and a government should reflect that by investing in and supporting those values, not rejecting them.

What you will not find in the MYEFO are those values—not for this Abbott government. This is a government that wants to be so hands off that it has no culpability and no involvement in running the nation. Worse than wanting to be a government full of management-speak for fussy bureaucrats, this government wants to be a government on holidays. 'You've got to go and build it,' they say, but it is up to you to go and get a job. In short, what the Abbott government are saying quite clearly is, 'You're on your own, sport.' I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.