Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I inform the Senate that at 8.30 am today, 10 proposals were received in accordance with standing order 75. The question of which proposal would be submitted to the Senate was determined by lot. As a result, I inform the Senate that the following letter has been received from Senator Gallagher:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:

The need for the economy to work in the interests of working Australians.

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today's debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today in question time we heard that the government is seemingly in a parallel universe when it comes to the question of whether the economy is working for ordinary Australians. In response to a survey, we have found that ordinary Australians, working Australians, pensioners—a whole range of Australians, voting for different political parties in this country—overwhelmingly believe that there is economic inequality and that it is increasing. That is what they are saying, and they know that because they feel it in their pay packets, they feel it in increased charges and they feel it because they see a government that favours the big end of town over their interests.

If we need further proof of this, recently we saw the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Dr Lowe, come out very strongly and say that wealth inequality has become more pronounced, particularly in the last five to six years. He went on to say that workers are currently experiencing lower rises in their pay packets than they experienced during the last recession. That was almost 30 years ago. This is coming from the conservative elements of our society—the Governor of the Reserve Bank, who does not normally make these sorts of statements, but he is making them because that is the reality. We know that Australians are earning less. It is an appalling state of affairs when workers today are seeing lower wage increases than they saw 30 years ago. Wage growth has slipped to a record low of 1.9 per cent. I heard Labor members saying today that our wage-fixing system, enterprise bargaining and so on, is broken. It clearly needs to be looked at, when workers are not getting a fair share for the hard work that they are putting in.

We also know that household debt is high and is rising faster than the unusually slow growth in incomes. No wonder ordinary working Australians are concerned about the economy, when they see that their household debt is rising yet they are not being compensated in their pay packets for the hard work that they do. Sadly, that fell on deaf ears today in the government. The federal Treasurer recently even claimed that inequality has got better. I do not know what statistics or reviews the Treasurer is looking at, but nobody—from the Reserve Bank governor to well-established experts—is telling us that the incidence of inequality is falling; everyone is telling us it is rising. The experts are saying the opposite to what the Treasurer says. We recently had David Hetherington from Per Capita tell us that the labour share of income in the economy has fallen. Workers know that because there is less in their pay packets, but we now have a statistician telling us that. Inequality expert Peter Whiteford has directly contradicted the Treasurer, Mr Morrison, stating that household income inequality has become much more unequal. Meanwhile, we know that the top one per cent have almost doubled their share of the national income.

Sadly, we hear members of the government saying, 'It's just the politics of envy', but this has nothing to do with the silly notion of the politics of envy. This is ordinary working Australians—Liberal and Labor voters, voters of all political persuasions—who are saying overwhelmingly that things in their households are getting tough, and that's backed up by the experts. Unfortunately, the Turnbull government have just not looked at that. In fact, we have seen that they have rewarded those top-income earners with tax cuts and they have hit the pay packets of low-income earners in standing by earlier this year and doing absolutely nothing when penalty rates were cut. They've also cut Medicare, making it harder for ordinary Australians to go to the doctor. We've also seen cuts to education and we've seen, more broadly, cuts to health. So Australians are quite correct when they say the economy is not working in their interests. They're making the contribution but they're not getting the rewards. Inequality will continue to rise.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The best way for the economy to work in the interests of working Australians is for there to be a Liberal-National government. When you have a Labor government, they destroy the economy. If you look at the history of Australia, and I encourage those on the other side to look at what happens when Labor get into power, they destroy the economy. They're not nasty people; it's just that they're not very good at things to do with money. They get in there, and it all becomes a bit too much for them, because they don't have the experience and understanding of what you need to drive the economy to help working Australians.

You can look at the history of Australia and look at what happens: Labor get in and they spend money, they go crazy and they destroy the economy, and then we come back in and clean up Labor's mess. It happened in 1931; it happened in 1949; it happened in 1975; it happened in 1996; and it happened recently, in 2013, when we returned to power to clean up Labor's mess. To give you an indication of how bad Labor are at running the economy, let's talk about debt. When John Howard and the Liberal-National coalition won power in 1996, we had $96 billion worth of foreign debt. Mr Howard, Mr Costello and the leaders of the National Party all worked together to get that debt down to zero—we got it down to zero—and we had money in the bank. But in comes the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd-Green conglomerate, which was running Australia, writing out cheques and going crazy, and, when they were thrown out of power in 2013, our debt was hundreds of billions of dollars.

Don't come in here, members of the Labor Party, and talk about the need for the economy to work in the interests working Australians, because you're the problem. The Labor Party and the union movement are the problem when it comes to modern Australia, because they don't understand what it's like to start a business. They don't understand that, when you start a business and when the money comes in, you pay everyone else—you pay your staff, you pay all the bills—before you worry about your own family. It comes down to the culture between the left and the right. The left in this country don't come from the business world; they come for the union world. They come from a background where the money is always going to come in and they don't have to worry about where the money's coming from or balancing the books, because each year, more money comes in.

On this side of the chamber, there are people who have run businesses and who understand that, if you want to help working Australians and if you want to help the economy, the best way is to make sure that business does well. The best way for people to have jobs is not for the government to declare and issue an edict from these granite and marble foyers that make up this city of Canberra to employ more people; it is for government to create the conditions for business to employ more people and for business to grow so those who are working will have secure jobs and jobs that pay well. They are jobs that will make sure that people can look after their families—and they, too, can start a business one day. The great Australian dream is to actually start a business, because it empowers people. It empowers people to understand that no matter what their background, no matter what school they went to or whether they went to university, or whatever it is, whether they have an IQ of 200 or an IQ of 20, the great Australian dream is to start a business. So you are in charge; if you are the boss, you don't have to answer to anyone else. And that's why we push business.

How do we encourage business to grow? It's because we cut taxes. Do you know what? You need taxes to pay for social services, but we cut taxes because we believe that Australian families are the ones who are better to decide how and where they spend their money. We are loud and proud to be the party of cutting taxes because we believe lower taxes are good for you. We believe lower taxes are good for you and your families. We believe lower taxes are good for businesses. We believe lower taxes are good for society as a whole. We believe that the individual—that great construct of the individual—is the person who can best decide how they can spend their money. Not government, not bureaucrats—it is the individual.

In terms of this government and making the economy work in the interests of working Australians, we will cut taxes. We will cut taxes for those who work for business. We will cut taxes for business. But what we have on the other side is a Labor Party that wants to increase taxes. It should be proud and strong about this. The modern Labor Party is not the party of Hawke and Keating in terms of opening up the economy. It is not the party of Hawke and Keating in terms of actually lowering some taxes. This is a party of plagiarism.

What Labor has done is go on the internet and googled: 'How to win an election?' or, 'What does left wing mean?', and it has looked at what has happened. I am not talking about Venezuela; I am talking about Jeremy Corbyn. We have a modern Labor Party that has looked at what has happened in the United Kingdom with Jeremy Corbyn and gone, 'Golly me, Jeremy Corbyn. Let's run this class warfare. Let's run this class warfare argument. Let's see what Corbyn did in the United Kingdom, and let's bring that over here in Australia. Let's get the militant unions in power again. Let's have this class warfare.' That is what the modern Labor Party has become. 'Let's put taxes on people and businesses. Let's put taxes on people who want aspiration and hope for their families.'

The modern Labor Party are going to grind down this economy. God help us all if you ever win an election again. I will do my utmost to make sure you never win an election again at a national level because of the damage that you create and the damage you inflict on working Australians. You sit there in your ivory towers. You want to raise taxes here. You want more red tape here. You talk about class warfare while you are sipping your soy lattes and you don't understand what you're doing in terms of how you are damaging working Australians. Where are you on the Adani project? Where are you standing up for hope in Central Queensland and North Queensland with the 10,000 jobs that will come out of that project to help working Australians. Do you know what? We don't just get silence from the Labor Party but have the Labor Party actively attacking this project and actively attacking people who want to get a job and who want to get ahead to make sure they can look after their families.

Don't come into this chamber and talk about equity and use words like that which one of your researchers has used a thesaurus to find those types of things. Come in here and talk about jobs. Come in here and talk about helping businesses. Come in here and talk about cutting taxes. Come in here and talk about helping Australians get on with their lives by growing business, cutting taxes and standing up for freedom rather than standing up for political correctness rot. (Time expired)

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That contribution by Senator McGrath shows that the coalition are not listening to workers or the people of Australia. His contribution illustrates quite clearly that they, the federal government, are the problem. I'm really sick and tired of people like Senator McGrath standing up here and saying that we on this side don't know about small business. My partner operates a small business. I know exactly what small businesses go through and I know exactly what this government is not doing for them. So I'm pleased to be able to stand up and talk about the need for the economy to work in the interests of working Australians, because that contribution by Senator McGrath wasn't in the interests of working Australians.

It's widely acknowledged that we are experiencing the highest levels of income inequality since the Great Depression. Senator McGrath and his colleagues only have to get out there and talk to ordinary workers, and they'll tell them that the gap between rich and poor Australians remains one of the great fault lines in our country. It's clear that the economy is not working in the interests of working Australians, who are rightly worried about their future, and they're worried about their kids' future. Where will they get a job? Where will they get good jobs? Average weekly hours worked by full-time workers have declined to levels not seen since the 1990s. Workers' share of income is at its lowest level in 50 years. Too many Australians are working harder for less money. As well as having less money in their pay packet, they have less security in their jobs. You don't have to believe me; you only have to go outside and talk to people. You only have to talk to ordinary workers about the fact that they feel less secure in their jobs. And we have a growing and chronic problem of unemployment. A record high number of people—in fact, more than one million Australians—are underemployed. They are working fewer hours than they want to and need to. Around one-third of part-time workers say they want to work more hours.

Those opposite would have us believe that insecure and part-time jobs are okay because they eventually lead to something better. But this theory is disputed by the experts. The OECD said, 'Non-regular contracts are rarely a stepping-stone to better jobs.' The cycle of low-paid and part-time work continues and, as the OECD points out, it rarely leads to a better job or a promotion. There is 40 per cent of the workforce in non-permanent forms of work. This leads to less economic security. The Australian community knows this—they see it firsthand—so it's no use in the government denying it. They are not believed out there and, if they continue to deny it and continue to not listen to the Australian people, they will pay the price, because they have illustrated that they are the problem here.

People are underworking and are underpaid, and many are too scared to speak up because they fear they will lose the part-time jobs they have. Wage growth is at its lowest since 2001 and has been on a downward trend since around 2013. How do workers get a loan for a car or a house when they don't have a secure income coming in? In my home state of Tasmania, the unemployment rate stands at 5.8 per cent. Sadly, the participation rate stands at just 61 per cent. Hundreds of Tasmanians have given up looking for work. Recent ABS data reveals that more than 700,000 Australians are working more than two jobs just to survive. Growth in secondary jobs, up to 9.2 per cent, has surpassed the growth in main jobs for the past three years. In 2015, the Australian Council of Social Services released a report on the growing economic inequality. We need a government that delivers for all Australians, not just the wealthy few. (Time expired)

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The title of this debate, 'The need for the economy to work in the interests of working Australians', is typical Labor division and misunderstanding of what government is about. We want to have a good economy not just for working Australians but for all Australians. Why the Labor Party would single out that the economy should only be there for working Australians is completely beyond me. Why don't they care about non-working Australians?

It brings to my mind the old adage that you don't weaken the strong to benefit the weak. You have to have an economy that not only provides for the strong—that is, those who have a job—but also looks after those who don't have a job: those who, through disability, are incapable of working; those young people attending schools, who are not working Australians. To get them the sort of education that Senator Birmingham and the Turnbull government are giving them, you need a good economy. You have to have an economy that is going ahead, is working, is positive and is properly managed.

I've been here a long time now. I've seen a few Labor governments come and go. None of them have been any good. When Labor governments are in power, you always see that they just spend money, spend money, spend money. They have no plan on how to raise that money, except by increasing taxes. That's typical of Labor, whether it be the Hawke government—when I first came here—the Keating government, the Rudd government, the Gillard government or the Rudd government. It is always the same—always spend taxpayers' money and, if you run short, borrow from overseas, which means you then pay huge interest rates to overseas lenders. That means that the things that you could use that interest rate money for get left behind.

We want an economy that is working well and is properly managed—one where we live within our means. Why do we want to do that? It's because we need to look after those non-working Australians as well as the working Australians. You can only do that if you have a good economy. That's what the Turnbull government's economic plan, budget plan, is all about. If you'd read the budget papers in any sort of detail, you'd understand there is a plan there. It's a workable plan. It keeps an eye on Labor's debt. It tries to reduce the debt that Labor ran up while, at the same time, keeping the economy going and saving our AAA credit rating.

In response to the previous speaker talking about the numbers of unemployed: unfortunately, the facts completely disagree with the submissions made by the previous speaker. Let me give you the real facts. A record number of 12,166,900 Australians are employed. I emphasise 'a record number'. That's never happened before. A record number of 8,356,000 Australians are in full-time employment. The total number of people working in Australia has now increased for the past nine months. Full-time employment has now risen by 166,700 in the six months to June 2017—the largest increase in full-time employment in the first half of the calendar year on record. So there we are. Full-time employment has risen in the first six months by what is, in fact, a record for the first six months of any year ever. Since the coalition came to office in December 2013, more than 700,000 jobs have been created.

You can have Labor speakers get up and give you some figures, and I'm sad to say the Labor Party are very good at this. Never mind about the truth of your information, your facts or what you say. Just throw any figures around and someone, somewhere—particularly the ABC, if they're listening—will pick up those figures and broadcast them to assist the Labor Party. But they will ignore the real facts, which I've just given you. Those facts are by the appropriate authorities. They're uncontestable. They are there, and yet Labor will still tell you we're in an employment crisis. I add that employment has now increased by 240,200 people, or two per cent, over the whole year, above the decade average rate of 1.6 per cent. Let me explain that and emphasise it again: the 10-year average rate has been 1.6 per cent; in the last year, it's been two per cent. It shows that the Turnbull government's plans have indeed been working.

I heard at question time and in other debates today that the Labor Party are attacking the PaTH program for internships. I have been waiting to say this: did you know that the first person to take up the internship program was none other than the Labor member for Herbert? She put on an intern. She had it publicised in the paper and said, 'What a wonderful program this is!' And yet here we have the Labor Party today criticising it. Whoever's speaking after me in this debate might indicate why it is that the Labor Party think that this is an awful program of the Turnbull government and yet one of their own elected representatives is using the internship program. I might say to those Labor senators in the chamber today, perhaps you've also used the internship program to assist in your office. If I am wrong on that, perhaps you will be able to tell me and speak for yourselves, but I am aware of a number of politicians using it. I looked at it. I haven't done it yet, but it is a good program. It provides an internship for a period of four to 12 weeks, and a youth bonus wage subsidy of up to $10,000 is available to help more businesses hire young people.

We are certainly dealing with ways that the government can help to create jobs. But the best way to create jobs, of course, is to have an economy that is moving ahead, not one that the Labor Party wants: an economy driven by envy and class warfare—a proposal where you want to drag down the rich and drag down those property investors, although, as I was interjecting at question time, those property investors are pretty widely spread across the community. I know—and I won't name names—a number of my colleagues sitting opposite me in the Labor Party are pretty good property investors too. You have this rhetoric from the Labor Party against the different means by which investors are encouraged to invest in property, and yet, at the same time as the Labor Party is officially questioning or criticising these approaches, I am aware that many of my friends opposite are actually taking advantage of those sorts of provisions that are available. We are interested in an economy that is for all Australians, and the Turnbull government is doing it.(Time expired)

Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a great matter of public importance has been put on the agenda today: the need for the economy to work in the interests of working Australians. I am sure every working Australian out there paying their taxes would dearly love to see how it's going to be addressed. Our economy is in the hands of our governments: our past, current and future governments. Unless we actually rein it in and pull in our spending, then I am sorry to tell the Australians out there: you're going to be paying more taxes. We are one of the highest-taxed countries in the world.

What is dear to the hearts of many Australians is their cost of living. The cost of living has been rising. Most importantly as of late is the cost of electricity. I have just travelled to Queensland quite extensively. I have spoken to someone in a fish and chip shop—a small business that I used to have. She got her last electricity bill: $14,000 for a quarter. I spoke to a hotelier in Ayr: $14,000 per month in electricity. Then we talk about a community club in North Queensland that is paying $531,000 a year in electricity—a non-profit organisation. These are costs. These are the retail electricity prices, in cents, per kilowatt hour in Australia in August 2017: South Australia, 47.13; New South Wales, 39.10; Queensland, 35.69; and Victoria, 34.66. What are Americans paying? They are paying 15.75c per kilowatt hour. If you go to other countries around the world: Sweden, 28.36; Norway, 23.9; and Poland, 20.9. We have the highest electricity costs in the world, and yet you want to shut down the power stations here. We're going to renewables—another thing that's rising costs here in Australia. And we are not managing our money correctly. We are actually borrowing to give away $3.9 billion in foreign aid in 2017-18. That is money that we are borrowing to give to countries that I feel are actually corrupt. It's mismanagement of Australian taxpayers' dollars, and that needs to be reviewed.

Another thing that we need to look at is what we're paying our bureaucrats, which doesn't pass the pub test with many Australians. Vice-chancellors are highly overpaid. They are basically the highest-paid vice-chancellors in the world. Taxpayers pay nearly 60 per cent of their salaries, and yet do our universities perform on a world basis? No, they don't, yet they're paid the highest salaries. An average salary is around $890,000 and that is excessive.

If we look at what happened with successive governments, both Labor and Liberal, we can see they sold off our assets. Telstra was sold when it was making $2.2 billion profit a year and now it makes over $6 billion profit a year. We sold our airports: Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Sydney. That's all gone. Telstra has been sold. At the moment, we are looking to the Adani mine to build the railway line. We're going to loan them the money, a billion dollars, to build it. Here we have an asset that would possibly make a billion dollars a year and yet we're not going to build it and own it. The Australian people are fed up with both the Liberal and the Labor governments and how they've run this country. They have destroyed it.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was going to start my contribution this afternoon by saying that the government have taken their foot off the throttle, but I have to be honest in this chamber: they've never, ever had their foot on the throttle. The government are leaderless, rudderless and so self-absorbed with their own infighting that they have not progressed in the way that they promised they would at the last election to drive the economy and create jobs. That's the reality of it.

You can tell that we've been on a winter's break, which is good, because most of us reunited with our families. But there was Senator McGrath's contribution this afternoon. If it were not such a serious topic, it would have been quite comical. I give him one tip from today: he needs to buy a razor. Senator Macdonald's contribution was what you would typically hear from somebody who's obviously been in this place for too long. During the winter break, Labor and those on this side of the chamber, and in the other place, were out in the community talking about the issues that really matter to the community: whether they have jobs, whether they are able to meet their rent or their mortgage payments and whether they are able to meet their energy prices. Those are the issues that really matter. But what we've heard from those on the opposite side is all about themselves.

The government have been obsessing about what Labor have been doing when, in fact, what they should be doing is running the country. We've been putting our policies out there. It's fine for Senator Macdonald to talk about some of those in this place, but we're really focused on listening to what the community are saying to us. We've learnt from this period in opposition that we need to develop our policies, and we will have them fully costed before we go to the next election. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister of this country, as we know, is an elitist and he's out of touch. He's more interested in protecting his own job than creating jobs for everyday Australians.

With the infighting, the government have taken their eye off the ball. As I said, they've never had their foot on the throttle. They've always considered themselves to be the champions, and they say that the Australian people trust them when it comes to the economy. The reality is very different under this government. What has this government done in relation to the rising cost of living? What have they done in relation to the rising cost of child care? What have they done in relation to underemployment in this country? People who are unemployed are still the most disadvantaged in this community. There are those in our community who are struggling to pay health care because of low wages. We have not had any wages growth for the last three years at least. There's job insecurity that we have never experienced before.

We see the government ripping off Australians every day—and we have seen what else it has been involved in when it comes to money laundering with one of the big banks. We see excessive university fees. This government is hell-bent on making it harder for Australians to be able to afford to go to university. We know the rising cost of housing. Right across the board, this government has failed in every area that drives the economy and gives Australians a good standard of living.

In his press conference today, the Prime Minister—and maybe he's following on from Senator McGrath and it is comedy day—stood up in front of the media and said, 'I am a strong leader.' Well, what a joke. We've been away for some six weeks and we've seen nothing but chaos and dysfunction from this government. We've seen government members and senators espousing that they want to bring on a vote in this place about marriage equality. What happened? It fizzled out, and those people have gone back underground. Maybe he's been practising in front of the mirror too much, saying, 'I'm a strong leader; I'm a strong leader.' No-one believes he is, because people are totally and utterly disappointed. I hear from Liberal people not only from Tasmania but also when I travel around the country who are so disappointed in the Prime Minister's failure to deliver and to show leadership at a time when Australia is crying out for it.

The Labor Party, under the leadership of Bill Shorten, are united. We are developing our policies and we will have policies the Australian people can have confidence in. I look forward to election day. (Time expired)

Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This afternoon's debate comes at quite an important time, because over the recent five-week recess many of us were busy in our electorates. Many of us were organising to argue important points about fairness and equality on other sorts of issues not just in regard to the economy. Many of us might have taken an opportunity to go abroad during the recess. I used my time, amongst other causes, to review what was happening across the Australian media landscape. Over the last few weeks, it was interesting to see an increasing number of stories talking about wages growth or, more particularly, the lack of wages growth in Australia. It forced me to contemplate just how important it is to establish an economic narrative, how important it is to have an economic plan and how it is always important to build the trust of the parliament in being able to get that economic plan legislated.

Over the course of the first year of the Turnbull government, I think the record starts to look very, very clear. It's a record that bodes well for the next two years of the Turnbull government. We can start to point to a clear plan being implemented by the Turnbull coalition government around a number of important issues—important issues to Australian families and important issues to working Australians. Of course, when we talk about fairness and equality, we also need to reflect on privilege in our community. We often hear those opposite and some crossbench senators talking about the privilege that the Turnbull coalition government seeks to protect—arguments, I would argue, that are ill-conceived and narrow; arguments that are built on the politics of envy and the old politics of class warfare.

I reflected on an opinion piece that appeared in the Australian Financial Review that tackled the issue of privilege by identifying the trade union privilege that exists in the Australian economy. I might just read from that opinion piece in the short time that's available to me, because there is this great myth in Australia that trade unions exist to protect the interests of workers—not true. I noticed in the gallery many young children, schoolchildren. And I just want to remind them that the myth of the labour movement, whether it be the Australian Labor Party in our parliaments or the trade union movement, is that they are protecting ordinary working families—not true. I might just start by reading the opening remarks in this Australian Financial Review opinion piece. It says:

For all their talent at finding instances of "discrimination" and "privilege" in even the most benign of circumstances, Australia's modern left refuses to acknowledge, much less remedy, one of its most powerful and pernicious contemporary examples.

And I will remind you that here that we are talking about privilege and, in particular, trade union privilege. It goes on:

Trade union membership among Australians has been in precipitous decline for the last two decades. Just over 20 years ago, around 40 per cent of Australian workers were members of a trade union.

Today, that figure is just 15 per cent of the total workforce—and a mere 10 per cent of the private sector workforce. Perhaps most ominously for unions, they are failing to cultivate the next generation of workers, with just 6 per cent of employees aged 15-19 signing up.

This is even more remarkable when you consider that major retailers such as Coles and Woolworths—who employ large numbers of people in the 15-19 year old cohort—effectively act as recruitment agents for the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA).

I'm just wondering, Mr Acting Deputy President, whether you might have seen this opinion piece in the Australian Financial Review. Perhaps you did and perhaps you didn't. It goes on to say:

The union pays considerable sums to these retail giants, and in exchange they actively encourage their employees to join the SDA, helpfully facilitate the automatic deduction of union fees through their own payroll systems and nominate the union-controlled REST superannuation fund as the default choice for employees.

The argument goes on to say that in our economy, in Australian society, the real issue of privilege, if we are to tackle it, must be tackled by focusing on that trade union privilege that exists in the economy. It goes on to say:

So, despite the fact that the Australian economy is now more dependent than ever on small businesses competing in a globalised marketplace to drive growth and create jobs, we find ourselves saddled with a workplace relations system that is more centralised, inefficient and inflexible than the one that existed in 1993.

As a result, despite the fact that union membership is at an all-time low, the special privileges our centralised system confers on unions through the Fair Work Commission means they can still claim to negotiate on behalf of some 60 per cent of the total workforce.

That's the point. We have a trade union movement in a country whose membership is declining, particularly amongst young workers, who are not signing up to trade unions. I think that's a good thing. But what we say is that on the alternate side to that is this exceptional privilege, this exceptional power, this exceptional influence, that trade unions have through the Fair Work Commission.

If we turn more specifically to the issue of fairness and what we are doing for working Australians, much of this debate depends on the particular position you occupy, whether it's in the Australian political class or in the Australian economy, and whether or not you think that things are improving for Australian workers and Australian families. There can be no denying that things are more difficult for Australian families. In my home state of Western Australia we know that to be particularly true. Coming off the back of a tremendous commodity boom, significant investment in infrastructure is very, very necessary. We have now seen a significant slowing of the Western Australian economy, and that means that the lack of new jobs, the lack of future jobs, makes it much harder for families. It makes it harder for families to be confident about their future, how they set their budgets up, how they save, how they invest, how they extend their homes, how they plan for holidays and how they plan for their children's education. And, importantly, it does cause people some concern about what sorts of jobs might be available for their children and for their grandchildren as they start to enter the workforce.

But in this debate this afternoon I do just want to highlight one comment from Roger Wilkins, who is the deputy director of the Melbourne Institute and the author of what I think is quite an important report with regard to economic and lifestyle issues in Australia. Commenting on Bill Shorten's oft-repeated claim that inequality is at a 75-year high, he said:

I would push back a bit against that very broad sweeping statement that inequality is at a 75-year high, not just because if anything inequality looks like it's been edging downwards since the GFC— (Time expired)

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a very interesting MPI: the need for the economy to work in the interests of working Australians. If we want the economy to work for any of us then we need the government to play a strong role in our lives. The Greens is a party that is working very hard in this Senate and in this parliament, with Adam Bandt in the lower house, to put up policies and to campaign for an economic system that works for all Australians, especially for working Australians. Why do we need government to play a strong role in our lives? If you look at what an economy is, essentially economies are underpinned by markets that facilitate transactions for labour, for example, and wages. But we know one thing for certain: markets, if left to their own devices, will fail. Call it laissez-faire economics, call it free market economics, call it trickle-down economics or call it neoliberal economics—we've got lots of terms for it—but free, unfettered markets, if left to their own devices, will fail. Any university student from either side of the political divide will tell you that.

We know markets don't price or deliver public goods. We know markets are no good for pricing or delivering essential services. We know markets don't price externalities like pollution if they are left to their own devices—and there's a role for government. We know that if labour markets are left to their own devices then workers in this country and elsewhere will get screwed. So we need strong institutions like industrial relations systems, we need a strong, effective organisation of labour through unions and—I agree, Senator Smith—we need effective representations to promote the interests of small businesses. Having run a small business myself, I recognise that millions of Australians in this country, including in my own state of Tasmania, across a largely rural economy, are in small businesses. Small businesses are a very important part of our economy and are comprised of very hardworking Australians. There are a lot of things we need, but we have to recognise that government must play a strong role in correcting for market failure, looking after the interests of workers and upholding the institutions that are essential for making sure that labour markets are fair, efficient and function well and don't just represent the interests of big businesses.

What's one of the other side effects of unfettered markets? Inequality. Christine Milne, in every speech she gave, used to say, 'The two challenges of my generation are climate change and inequality.' I recognise that it took one speech for Mr Bill Shorten to get this on the public radar, and I am glad that it is, but the Greens have been talking about this for decades. Inequality is one of the biggest challenges of our generation, and we in this place need to do everything we can to tackle it. There's wealth inequality and income inequality, and there's a whole range of issues around climate change that lead to inequality. All of them can be tackled by good policies and some convictions and some backbone in this place.

What has polled as the single biggest issue in Sydney in relation to inequality recently? Housing affordability. I have done everything I can in the last four years—every chance I get and every estimates I go to—to ask about housing inequality. I've asked the Treasury secretary—and I've have held up an avocado as a prop in estimates. I have done whatever shameless promotion about this very important issue. What are we doing about it? We can actually tackle this. No more fiddling around the edges; let's look at the perverse incentives and the fact that the government policies that we have in place, and have had in place for decades now, are actually creating this problem. I do not believe that these issues can be fixed by supply-side changes. We have to fix the demand-side changes that incentivise wealthy, mostly older Australian housing investors who are buying properties and definitely contributing to a bubble in housing prices and an affordability crisis against the interests of, especially, young and low-income Australians, many of whom are good, hardworking Australians. That's the kind of thing we can do.

This is a very important issue. I would rate it right up there with climate change—as Christine Milne did in her time here at the Senate. As the two biggest challenges of our generation we have an ethical and moral responsibility in this place to tackle them. Leaving markets to do their own thing is only going to make things worse. The No. 1 thing we can do in this place is recognise that we are here, our job is important, these hardworking Australians have put us here to represent them and, with good policies, courage and conviction, we can tackle these issues.

Malarndirri McCarthy (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in this matter of public importance debate to whole-heartedly condemn the Turnbull government's failure to ensure the Australian economy is operating in the interests of working Australians. Nowhere is this failure more evident than when it comes to the treatment by this government of workers under the flawed failure of the Community Development Program, the CDP. CDP requires participants to do 25 hours of work-like activity a week in return for welfare payments of about $10 an hour for 52 weeks a year. It only applies to people in rural and remote areas—and I am certainly not going to go into how this scheme is discriminatory with 85 per cent of Indigenous participants or how it's unfair when people who don't live in rural and remote areas don't have the same requirements to work for welfare payments.

CDP does nothing to build economies in regional and remote communities. It does nothing to build Indigenous business and Indigenous employment on country and community. In fact, it does the opposite by creating a pool of free labour for businesses by paying people with minimal welfare for work they should get a wage for. There is no long-term commitment or real vision by this government to develop real jobs in remote areas. This government is failing people who live in regional and remote Australia by refusing to come to grips with the need to make sure our economy works for everyone, not just the top earners. The government is particularly failing Indigenous Australians in remote regions. As former Liberal minister, Fred Chaney, said in a submission to the Senate inquiry into CDP, 'It's hard to describe the government's attitude as anything other than assimilationist, where they require remote Aboriginal people to fit into a metropolitan framework of work or welfare.' CDP does not stimulate remote economic development. It does not lead to the development of Indigenous business or jobs, and it actually works against what opportunities there are to get people into working on country.

But this government's failure to deal with the economic realities of remote and regional areas goes beyond the failures of the CDP. The Northern Territory is experiencing real issues with the impact of the government's proposed changes to the skilled migration program. The NT has a unique labour market, with workforce challenges that are not faced in other regions. We have a small population spread over a large geographical base and we have high participation and low unemployment. We have occupations in shortage in the long term in the NT that are not in shortage elsewhere in Australia. We also have a transient population. In recognition of this, the Northern Territory is the only state or territory with a designated area migration agreement. Northern Territory minister Ken Vowles is in Canberra at the moment letting federal ministers know how essential it is that the NT DAMA remains in place and be broadened to reflect the needs of local employers, the occupations that reflect NT labour market shortages and the flexibility to meet future occupation list changes.

Employment of local workers is the NT government's priority, and then other Australian workers to fill shortages. Many NT employers, including the Northern Territory government, continue to rely heavily on overseas workers to fill positions that cannot be filled locally. As at 1 July 2017, there were 1,619 primary 457 visa holders, with 1,078 dependants, filling skills shortages in the Northern Territory. The government's proposed changes to the skilled migration program may impact the NT's DAMA. They have created concern in the Northern Territory business community about their ability to meet their ongoing skills shortages. The NT DAMA arrangements have the potential to provide an alternative pathway for NT employers to fill skills shortages. A pathway for permanent residents for DAMA is necessary to attract appropriately qualified and experienced overseas workers and also recognises that the majority of occupations being accessed through DAMA have been in long-term shortage.

I urge the government to listen to Minister Ken Vowles and his Northern Territory parliamentary colleagues about ways that the Northern Territory's workforce needs can be accommodated so that it can continue to contribute to Australia's economic future. I urge you to listen to remote area workers who are being unfairly impacted by the discriminatory CDP and to make changes that will stimulate our regional and remote economies so that all workers and residents can benefit.

I do need to pick up on some of the comments by previous speakers—in particular, Senator Smith—in relation to unions. It's the unions in this country, particularly around the Indigenous issues of remote Northern Territory Australia, who are standing strong to bring about a better way of life in terms of wages for the people of the Northern Territory. Over the winter break, there was the establishment of the First Nations Workers Alliance to look at the inequality that is facing CDP employees across Australia. It is the unions who stood strong with Vincent Lingiari in order to pursue the rights for the Gurindji in terms of equality, wages and living conditions. It is the unions who are there for the most vulnerable in Australian society in jobs right across this country. So, I would encourage young Australians to turn to the people that you know are there to support you and to fight for you, to fight for your rights and to fight to return programs that are important to young Australians—penalty rates, for example.

I travelled the length and breadth of the Northern Territory these past six weeks and listened to Territorians who spoke about their concerns in relation to penalty rates. In Katherine, in Tennant Creek and in Alice Springs, and in the hospitality industry, there are many issues facing our young people. They are wondering: 'What is the vision for our country? What is this government doing to show real vision and real commitment to all Australians who live in these remote regions of our country?' There is none. Instead, the vision concentrates on those who have it all. The vision stays with those who want more and can get more under this government, but there is no long-term commitment and vision for the most vulnerable.