Cory Bernardi (SA, Australian Conservatives) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I inform the Senate that, at 8.30 am today, four 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:

Dear Mr President,

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

The lack of any plan by the Morrison Government to address slowing economic growth and stagnant wages.

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.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

After six years of the Liberals—that is, after three different prime ministers, three different Treasurers and 16 energy policies—the economy here in Australia continues to flounder. The economy has slowed substantially. Australians are struggling, and the Morrison government has no plan to turn things around.

Today marks six years since this Liberal government was elected, and its record card makes for very disappointing reading. Economic growth is at the lowest level since the global financial crisis. There are 1.8 million Australians looking for work or more work. Wages are growing at one-sixth the pace of profits, with this government presiding over the worst wage growth on record. Household debts have surged to record levels, increasing by $650 billion under the Liberals. Economic growth per person is going backwards. Productivity is going backwards. Business investment is down 20 per cent since the Liberals came to office, and now it is at its lowest level since the 1990s recession. Net debt has more than doubled.

This is what happens when a government spends six years pointing the finger, blame-shifting and making excuses instead of getting the policy settings right. While the Liberals are popping champagne corks and congratulating themselves on winning the election, Australians' wages aren't keeping up with the rising costs of child care, electricity and health, and our standard of living is going backwards. You would have thought that, after six years, they would have an economic policy to grow wages and the economy. One thing is certain: Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg are no Costello or Keating.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Australian Conservatives) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Polley, would you please refer to the Prime Minister and the Treasurer by their appropriate titles.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is an out-of-touch, rudderless government that is failing on jobs and on growth of the economy. While Labor has been out in the community talking about tackling inequality and the issues that matter to Australians—in my case, Tasmanians—the Liberals have been busy obsessing over Labor or sharpening their knives. All the Australian people are left with after six years of finger-pointing and blame-shifting is the slowest economic growth since the global financial crisis—stagnant wages, declining productivity and living standards, and record public and household debt. Wage growth stands at 0.6 per cent, the lowest on record, and Mr Morrison and Mr Frydenberg face the cameras with cheeky grins and say, 'Everything is going to plan.'

Last week the Reserve Bank decided to keep interest rates at a record low of one per cent. We know that the governor has warned this government on numerous occasions that we can't expect taxation and the economy to continue without better policies from this government. This comes off the back of two cuts in June and another cut in July. The Reserve Bank has also downgraded its economic growth and inflation forecasts. The global economy is unsettled, with trade tensions between the US and China continuing to drive down stock markets and exchange rates. Furthermore, interest rates are being lowered in the US, and political instability in Europe is creating particularly fragile circumstances. The Australian dollar has also hit a 10-year low of US66.77c. If you ask economists for their view on the national economic figures, many believe that the interest rates will fall as low as 0.5 per cent in the coming months and that, if the world moves to negative interest rates, Australia will be forced to consider applying this unique monetary policy.

Those opposite fail to take responsibility for their own economic mismanagement. Their economic mismanagement and incompetence has left the Australian economy adrift. Household living standards have declined under the Liberals, with real household median income lower than it was in 2013. When the global economy is shifting fast and the Australian economy is struggling to keep up, wages are growing at only one-sixth of the pace of profits, with this government presiding over the worst wages growth on record. That's really not a record to be proud of. Australians are currently feeling as if, no matter how hard they work, they just can't get ahead, because their wages aren't keeping up with the skyrocketing energy prices and health and food costs. The annual GDP growth is weaker than the RBA had forecast and weaker than what the government expected only a few months ago. This new data shows that, on the Liberals' watch, growth is just 0.5 per cent for the June quarter and has slowed further to 1.4 per cent for the year; GDP per capita has gone backwards over the year for the first time since the GFC; and annual GDP growth is lower than population growth. The national economy has gone from the eighth-fastest-growing economy in the OECD when Labor was in government to the 20th. Wages are growing at only one-sixth of the pace of profits. Productivity—the GDP per hour worked—has gone backwards over the year. Household spending remains weak, with annual growth slowing further to 1.4 per cent. Total private business investment went backwards in the quarter and over the year. As a percentage of nominal GDP, it was around its lowest level since the early 1990s recession.

Right when Australians need and expect a plan from the Morrison government to get the economy going, all they get instead is the good old blame game or the attack on workers or, as we've seen, those on Newstart. There's a thought bubble that keeps re-emerging and floating past the government, and that is, 'We have to keep whacking those who don't have a job,' even though the government are the ones that are responsible for not driving the economy, not allowing the creation of the jobs that need to be created, and people not having the confidence to employ people.

This weak growth and this lack of direction from the government are the inevitable consequences of a government with a political strategy but not an economic plan. The Morrison government repeatedly assured voters that the economy would remain strong under them. In fact, they campaigned heavily on that, because they had no other plan. They didn't talk about anything else that the Australian people would expect from a government going into an election. The Australian people would expect the government to provide their manifesto for where they saw the country going forward but, no, the Liberals didn't do that. They just said: 'Trust us. We're the better economic managers.' Well, quite frankly, from what I've articulated in this speech, they are not economic managers; they're frauds. This Morrison government repeatedly assured voters that the economy would stay strong under its government. This was an ironclad promise at the election. Yet they're failing the test that they set for themselves.

Labor will always fight, every day, for those less fortunate. Labor will always fight for Australian workers. Labor will always fight for Australian families, and we are determined to give them, going forward, an economic agenda to believe in. We will hold this government to account, because this government has failed the Australian people. They have failed their own tests that they set for themselves. They have presided over a national debt that's doubled. We see that the Australian workers who want jobs or want more work aren't able to obtain that job security. A strong leader wouldn't be taking our economy backwards. A strong leader would be taking Australia forward. Australians must have confidence in the economy. At the moment, they do not have that confidence, they do not have confidence in this government and they do not believe that this government can get the job done.

Amanda Stoker (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak against this matter of public importance that's been put forward by the Manager of Opposition Business, because the Australian economy, while it faces some significant international challenges, nevertheless remains strong in its fundamentals. Internationally, trade tensions between the US and China are weighing on the world economy, with both the IMF and the OECD downgrading their global economic forecasts. These increasing trade tensions will see business investment and trade volumes slow, while our greatest ally, the UK, is, because of Brexit, facing its own challenges and is in an uncertain economic position. As a result, when we look at countries like Singapore, Sweden, Germany and the United Kingdom, we see that they have experienced recent negative economic growth, if we look at the June quarter. Looking closer to home, we have faced drought, we have faced flood and we have faced bushfires, which are challenging our country even as we speak. They all contribute to a difficult economic environment.

So, while it's unquestionable that what people call 'headwinds' are faced by the Australian economy, it is entirely questionable that the response that has been proposed by the Labor Party is the right one. In the face of what is, in these circumstances, quite strong economic performance, the Labor Party does nothing but talk our economy down. And they would expose the Australian economy, if they had the opportunity, to greater risk through their constant program of higher taxes and higher debt. If the Australian people want any proof that the Labor Party are reckless economic managers, they need look no further than this very motion. And it's really a little bit rich to hear Labor complain about stagnant wages when, as I travel around Queensland, I hear over and over that the reason businesses who so very much want to be able to pay more to their staff right now but haven't been able to do so in a measure bigger than 2.6 per cent is that they are absolutely crippled by the utter failure of state governments—like Labor in my home state of Queensland—to deal with high energy prices. And they are absolutely crippled by the way federal Labor stripped all flexibility from employers and their ability to negotiate terms that work for their business.

This isn't about paying workers less—quite the opposite; it's about paying them more. But we find ways to pay staff more by getting them to work in ways that are higher-value, higher-productivity ways for that unique operation. That requires the kind of flexibility that is anathema to Australian Labor. But, despite the negative attitude of the Labor Party, the Australian economy continues to show incredible resilience and is the envy of the world.

I'll give you an example. The Australian economy has just completed its 28th consecutive year of economic growth, and it has maintained its AAA credit rating. That's a significant achievement, one that is not able to be matched by many worldwide. Add to this that employment growth at 2.6 per cent is more than twice the OECD average—and it's more than three times what this government inherited, something those opposite tend to forget. A record number of Australians are now in work, which is no small achievement, with over 1.4 million new jobs created in the private sector since the Liberal-National coalition came to government. Australia's GDP continues to grow, and it's evidenced by factors such as the increased expenditure that we saw in the June quarter in the vast majority of consumption categories. Moreover, living standards of Australians continue to increase because the net disposable income per capita has risen to be 2.7 per cent higher throughout the year.

It's also quite remarkable how, despite those external and international economic headwinds, the Australian economy has remained resilient and on track for the first economic surplus in over a decade. These economic results are particularly impressive, given the economy has yet to see flow into the figures that we see reported the income consequences or the stimulus effect, shall we say, of the recently passed tax cuts. We also haven't yet seen reflected in the data reported back the full impact of the Reserve Bank of Australia's decision to reduce interest rates. So when we see both of those levers reported, we can expect to see those numbers continue to improve. And yet, despite that strong economic performance even in difficult international circumstances, the Labor Party continue to wrongly assess what the problems are and they continue to talk down the Australian economy and its performance. When they do so, it harms Australians and their prospects, it harms their confidence, it harms the ability of Australian traders to get ahead in the international market and it does their base no service. Furthermore, not only does the motion ignore the reality of the government's good performance but it shows a complete lack of understanding of how we go about generating growth. So let's give those opposite a little reminder.

The government's agenda to ensure a stronger economy and higher wages was set out in this year's budget, and it was endorsed by the Australian people at the election. Given the current domestic economic environment of low inflation, low interest rates and low unemployment, this agenda focuses primarily on increasing labour demand by raising productivity. This is the most effective means of driving economic growth, which flows on to higher wages. The more employers that are out there looking for the right person for their business, the higher the rate they're going to pay to get the right person for the job. It's not rocket science, and yet those opposite don't seem to understand.

That's how we pull the important policy levers when it comes to getting wages to grow. On the tax front, the government's long-term structural reforms to personal income taxes are providing relief. They are boosting household incomes and they are incentivising workplace participation. In a sense, reducing the tax rates that regular Australians need to pay is a way the Australian government is giving them a pay rise—by letting them keep more of their own money. And yet, every day of the week, those opposite stood in the way of major long-term structural tax reform that puts more money in the pockets of all Australians. These reductions provide greater reward for effort. They encourage aspiration, something that we know those opposite don't seem to want to understand. As of last week, the ATO has issued more than 5½ million individual tax refunds for this financial year, totalling more than $14 billion. Again, that is going back into the pockets of Australians. The government has reduced taxes for small and medium-sized businesses, while setting up a new $2 billion securitisation fund to increase their access to capital so that they can invest, so that they can become more productive and so that they can make the gains that are needed to see wages grow.

The expansion of the instant asset write-off in this year's budget to an additional 22,000 businesses employing no fewer than 1.7 million people further supports the business investment that is needed to boost productivity—because that's how we deliver a stronger economy, that's how we deliver more jobs for all Australians and that's how we deliver the slow and steady, but real and tangible, long-term sustainable growth in wages that those opposite did not deliver when they were in government and cannot deliver, based on the policies they took to the last election.

We know that everything about this matter of public importance is just more of the political guff we have come to expect from those on the other side: flashy on the outside, empty in substance and, when you look deeper, really nothing more than an emperor with no clothes.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to join this debate on the lack of any plan by the Morrison government to address slowing economic growth and stagnant wages.

Last week's national accounts figures were damning. They confirmed what most of us already knew and what the government quite clearly is still in denial about, and that is that our economy is in trouble: the slowest growth rates since the GFC, 1.4 per cent year on year; real wage growth stagnating since 2013, averaging half a per cent per annum for the last five years; underemployment stuck at record high levels, above eight per cent—in fact, I think it's 8.4 per cent; and unemployment growing. And the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, whose job it is to manage the health of the Australian economy, is now screaming out for help. What more does Mr Morrison need to know to go, 'We're in trouble, folks. Action is needed'? Despite multiple cuts to the cash rate by the RBA, the economy isn't changing course.

What we need is fiscal stimulus, a government plan to resuscitate the economy. But where is that plan? What does the government intend to do? Drug testing people on income support is not a plan. Cracking down on the union movement isn't a plan. Axing another $1.5 billion in funding from the Australian Public Service as a last-minute election commitment is not a plan. These are nothing more than the same old discredited trickle-down tropes. What we need is bold ideas about how to genuinely lift aggregate demand.

We should be increasing Newstart and youth allowance immediately, by at least $75 a week. We know that people on income support put their money straight back into local economies, and that would stimulate the economy better than tax cuts for the already well-off. If you look at the Deloitte Access Economics report Analysis of the impact of raising benefit rates, it found the following impacts of raising Newstart by $75 a week. It would cost around $3.3 billion a year. However, it would boost the Australian economy by over $4 billion as a result of extra spending—and, oh, by the way, drag up, out of poverty, all those people struggling on Newstart. And I know that they will spend every cent they get because they need it to address key things that they don't spend money on because their income is so low. We know that it will boost spending because people living below the poverty line will spend the extra money on those essential goods and services, and they will spend it in local communities. Deloitte found the extra spending would create some 12,000 jobs—at the same time, helping people struggling in poverty. They also found, as the report says:

Total real wages being paid to Australians would therefore lift by around 0.2% … Similarly, the stronger economy would boost corporate profits, with that latter boost also running at close to 0.2%.

Finally, the stronger economy (more jobs, higher wages, stronger profits) would mean that the Federal Government would raise about an extra $1.0 billion in taxes, while State and Territory Government revenues would increase by some $0.25 billion.

Seems to me a pretty good investment—not only are you helping people in the community, you're also boosting our economy. Our community is expecting nothing less than a commitment by government to people and to those on Newstart. We've got the Reserve Bank governor, John Howard, the Business Council, NGOs—you name it; the list is growing—and they are all calling for a $75 increase to Newstart.

We need to have a real plan for wage growth. We should be reversing the cuts to penalty rates that went through in July, lifting the minimum wage to 60 per cent of the median full-time wage, and removing public sector wage caps. We should be creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs by investing in clean, green, climate-fighting infrastructure, like public transport projects such as Melbourne Metro 2 in Melbourne and the Thirroul rail tunnel between Wollongong and Sydney, dramatically cutting both pollution and travel times. We should be investing in a 100 per cent renewable energy grid, with dramatic upgrades to electricity generation, transmission and storage infrastructure. We should be building a 21st-century fast-charging network to support the transition to electric vehicles, and 500,000 new energy-efficient public homes to alleviate the housing crisis. Again, we should be helping people, achieving a boost to the economy but also helping people that need it. We should create a national nature fund, reversing cuts to Landcare and seeing over $2 billion invested in our regions each and every year, to bring an end to the extinction crisis and employ tens of thousands of workers in environmental restoration.

This is what sensible fiscal policy looks like. This is a plan. It's a plan for what an economy could look like, a clean, green economy that supports the people in that economy—in other words, putting people and the environment first—and an economy actually doing what it should be doing, which is supporting people and the planet. We need bold ideas in line with what the experts are saying. Right now it's the Greens who have a plan to address these issues. We are putting forward ideas for genuine plans for jobs, a genuine plan for wage growth, and a genuine plan to build a zero-emission economy. This is what we need to be doing to protect our community, our planet and our economy. We need a strong economy so that we can make sure that people in our community are looked after and our planet is looked after.

But this government's plan—I suppose you could say it's a plan—is a plan to demonise those on income support. It's a plan to distract people by raising this fear, yet again, of drug testing, penalising people who have an addiction, which is an issue that should be treated as a health issue. This government want to roll out the cashless debit card across the country. That's a plan; it's a plan to demonise people. It's a plan to limit people's cash to make it harder for some of the most vulnerable members of our community. As the Consumer Action Network has pointed out, the cashless debit card makes it harder for people. If they haven't got cash, it is harder for them to keep up. The government have no plan for our community or for a safe, strong, caring community that looks after its most vulnerable. They need to throw out the drug-testing plan. They need to raise Newstart instantly by injecting $4 billion. (Time expired)

Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this matter of public importance, and it is an important and urgent matter—that is, the lack of any plan by the Morrison government to address slowing economic growth and stagnant wages. Last week this government watched as the clock ticked over six years of their inaction on this economy. After six years of the Liberal-National government the economy has slowed, wages are stagnating and Australians are struggling with the cost of living. Under this government, Australians are working harder and going backwards.

I know that this government would prefer to speak about anything else except its economic record. It would prefer to talk about Labor, but the facts are very clear: wages are growing at just one sixth of the pace of profits—the worst wages growth on record—economic growth is at the lowest level since the global financial crisis, productivity is going backwards, net debt has more than doubled and 1.8 million Australians are looking for work or are underemployed. This mismanagement of the economy has led to a decline in living standards and record household debt, increasing by $650 billion. Last week the Reserve Bank Governor, Dr Philip Lowe, finally weighed in, calling for a three per cent wage rise for public sector workers. Dr Lowe said that wage caps of two to 2.5 per cent were helping to depress wages by setting the standard in the private sector. The RBA wants wages to go up, but this government has no plan to make that happen.

What this government do have a plan to do is cut penalty rates. They've already done that. They've already cut penalty rates for hospitality workers, and who knows who is next? They do have a plan to attack workers and unions who use their limited rights that they have to bargain for better wages. Last week I stood on a picket line with workers in Brisbane doing just that—bargaining for better wages. I have to say, it was the best picket line I've been to in a long time, because there was an abundance of Italian food at this picket line, and it was a fantastic way to find out what was really going on at the company and how the workers had been treated. They haven't seen a dramatic change in six years; all they've seen is their working conditions going backwards.

Workers at O-I glass, a highly profitable US owned glass manufacturer, know that you don't get a pay rise just by asking your boss nicely. They are currently taking protected industrial action because their employer won't lift their wages. Instead, their employer has threatened to tear up their agreement and put workers back on award wages. That's under this government; that's what employers are threatening to do. These workers just want a fair go. You know that saying that we've all heard, 'If you have a go, you get a go,'—that sort of thing? Well, seven weeks on, they are still waiting. How much longer will they have to wait under this government? The government has no plan to help these workers or to help them bargain fairly. They have—or, should I say, Senator Stoker certainly has—a plan to make it easier to sack workers if they're not the right fit for a company. Do you know what would make a person a bad fit for a company? Someone who asks for fairer wages, union members who stand on picket lines, union members who wear stickers on their hats or fly a flag on a construction site.

This raises a very important issue about this government and this Prime Minister. Since the election, the Prime Minister has set his agenda based on what he considers a test for Labor. It is very telling what the government is prepared to test Labor on, but it's what they won't test Labor on that paints a clearer picture. Why isn't this government prepared to test Labor on the true state of this economy? Because it's worse than it was since during the GFC. Why isn't the government prepared to test Labor on low wages? Because it is wages that the RBA says need to go up. Why isn't the government prepared to test Labor on infrastructure spending? They promised money during the election, but it won't be spent in regional Queensland for another four years. We're going to be waiting for those roads to be built for another four years, with no jobs and no wages lifting. They don't want to test us on that, because they can't keep their promises.

The government talk a big game about the economy, and they want to lecture people like me, who grew up in a single-parent household, about the politics of envy to distract from their own mismanagement. They want to talk about aspiration, because that's all you need to get your wages growing—just an aspirational attitude and some good feelings! No-one is envying the government at this moment in time, because they have no plan to turn this ship around. No-one would aspire to be this government at this moment in time. Instead, the Prime Minister is playing games with the Australian people and the parliament.

The true test for a prime minister isn't how effectively he wedges the opposition. The true test for a prime minister isn't how well he divides our country. Prime ministers are remembered for what they build, how they run the economy and what they do to improve the lives of the most vulnerable people in our society. Prime Minister Tony Abbott was tested, and he failed. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was tested, and he failed as well. Six years after the election of the coalition, it is clear that this Prime Minister and those opposite are not up to the test of managing the economy.

The Morrison government want to blame everybody else. They want to use terms like 'international factors', 'international circumstances', 'difficult economic environment' and 'state government issues'. But Labor isn't here to talk down the economy. The facts are facts. The Liberals want to talk about anything except their poor economic record, but let's forget about figures and percentages for a minute. If you spend some time in a factory, on a picket line or at an aged-care facility, you would know how this economy makes people feel. Wages that pay the bills aren't a big ask. Wages that keep up with profits aren't a lot to ask for. But when you don't have them you feel it—trust me. We don't need lectures from those opposite to tell us people are struggling. Under this government, there's no plan to make that struggling stop.

Finally, can I say this: today in question time, senators from this side of the chamber asked some straightforward questions about this government's plan to help the economy and lift wages, but those opposite couldn't answer a single question without attacking Labor. If that is this government's economic policy—to attack Labor and to dodge the hard questions—then the state of our economy will get worse and worse. Australian families deserve better than this government. Regional Queenslanders certainly deserve better than this government. Regional Queenslanders deserve the roads that they were promised at the last election. Workers deserve better wages. The workers standing on that picket line in Brisbane deserve to have their wages case listened to. They deserve to have wages that are fair and that reflect the work that they are doing and what they give back to that company. What they don't deserve is to have to stand on the side of the road to demand them. It's time for this government to take action, to get moving and to start driving our economy.

Finally, with the very last minute that I have, I just want to make a comment on something that is very dear to my heart. I hope you don't mind indulging me. The Cairns State High School girls soccer team is playing in the national final tomorrow, and I want to say to them that they've achieved an amazing thing by making the national final. They've travelled all the way down from Cairns, and I wish them the absolute best. I know that they will do Cairns proud. So thank you very much.

Kimberley Kitching (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Government Accountability) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Senator Green, and good luck to the team.

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to address this matter of public importance, and I think this demonstrates the calcification of the Labor Party beyond all doubt. We've just seen a federal election where the Labor Party's policies were written and authorised by the Labor Party but, of course, were actually drafted by their mates in the unions or the financial sector. I think the Labor Party giving up on an open, competitive economy, their inability to support measures to make our economy more competitive so that more jobs can be created, their inability to support tax cuts, trade deals—whatever—really is depressing. When you think about the record of the Labor Party in the 1980s, where they cut taxes, cut tariffs and opened Australia to the world, what a depressing situation you have today. We have the well-known record of the last Labor government, which left an out-of-control fiscal position for the nation. The Labor Party promised the world but failed to deliver. Their promises, be they health related, education related or disability related, were all unfunded. I'm not saying they weren't good ideas, but the Labor Party left a totally unsustainable budget position for our country.

We are due to deliver the first surplus in over a decade, finally. That will be a $55 billion turnaround from a fiscal year comparison with when we came to office in 2013. The last Labor budget left a $20 billion deficit. So we inherited a deteriorating budget position, which we have stabilised to the point where we can now return to budget balance. The underlying fundamentals of the economy maintain their resilience. I would say, looking at the employment statistics in terms of the gender pay gap and employment growth, that all of those figures are heading in the right direction. Perhaps the most striking statistic of recent times that I can recall is one that was outlined by Senator Cormann at the Sydney Institute just a few weeks ago: if the proportion of people on welfare had remained at the same level it was under Labor in 2013, there would be an additional 350,000 Australians on welfare. That's 350,000 people, in addition to what we have today, that would be on welfare if Labor had remained in office. We have turned that around, and we have turned around the stagnating labour market.

Infrastructure has been a hallmark of our term in office. There is a record investment of over $100 billion over the decade. In my home state, the great state of New South Wales, the government is investing $5.3 billion to deliver the Nancy-Bird Walton international airport in Western Sydney. This recent budget also includes financing the M1 Pacific Motorway extension to Raymond Terrace in New South Wales. And, as I mentioned in my opening comments, we should never forget that Labor failed to deliver any material trade deals during their time in office. Even though they inherited well-advanced trade agreement discussions with Japan and China, they couldn't deliver a trade deal, because their bosses at the unions said they weren't allowed to do trade deals. How depressing!

One of the other reasons that the Labor Party's budget was never credible is that it was built on quicksand. You may recall Wayne Swan, who is now the national president of the Labor Party, presiding over—frankly—a budget crisis, where he said that he was going to deliver four surpluses and failed to deliver any of them. Part of that was because he had decided that he would progress a mining tax, which in 2013-14 was supposed to deliver $2 billion but raised just $126 million in the first six months of that fiscal year. You'd have to say that was a bit of a failure, wouldn't you.

It's not just about tax policy. It's also about being disciplined. Apart from the very strong statistic about welfare—and I do think this is a very important one—we have ground spending growth down to 1.9 per cent, which is the lowest in 50 years. That is an integral part of repairing a busted budget. Of course, 1.9 per cent is vastly lower than the 3.5 per cent we inherited in 2013. So you'd have to say that, in the time we've had in office, we've turned around an unsustainable budget position, which was built on quicksand taxes and totally unreliable projections by the former Treasurer and now national president of the Labor Party, who famously promised four surpluses and delivered four deficits. We won't make the same mistake.

I want to turn to the more recent history—because it's not all about 2013; it's also about 2019. The Labor Party took to the last election almost $400 billion in new taxes to clobber the economy. There were more taxes than you could poke a stick at: the retiree tax, housing tax, trust tax, carbon taxes et cetera. The retiree tax would probably have to be the most unfair tax. I spent many years working in the financial services industry, and many people would come forward and say: 'I've found a way to fix the budget. Here's this great idea where we take all this money from people on a retrospective basis.' The retiree tax would have hit 900,000 Australians—300,000 in New South Wales. It would have pulled the rug out from underneath people who had made their financial arrangements in good faith, thinking that future governments wouldn't come and pull the rug out from underneath them, let alone the Labor Party.

Primarily, many of the people who would have been hit—or could still be hit by the retiree tax, given that Chief Comptroller Swan has said that they should keep the retiree tax; and of course don't keep it a secret—are earning or have a taxable income of less than $37,000. So we are not talking about the cigar-chompers from Collins Street here; we are talking about mums and dads who have been prudent and have invested in Australian shares. Obviously, over the course of history, there have been demutualisations and privatisations, where people have been encouraged to invest in Australian companies. The former Treasurer famously said not only that people should not vote for the Labor Party if they don't like the retiree tax but also that people were 'overinvested in Australian shares'. It's probably quite dangerous territory for people who hold elected office to give unlicensed financial advice—and it is certainly not something that I propose to do.

The retiree tax is still a key part of the Labor Party's policies, despite it being terribly unfair and retrospective. But of course there's also the housing tax. This has to be the stupidest of all the taxes Labor has come up with. Basically, the premise is that if we put more taxes on housing that will create more houses—amazing! This is from the Labor Party, who championed deregulating the economy and opening our country to the world—to their eternal credit and the eternal credit of Bob Hawke—and now they're saying that more tax equals more houses. It's just crazy. Independent analysts have looked at the housing tax concept. I guess that is what you could call it, though it's probably more accurately described as a fiasco. In Sydney, SQM Research said that property prices would have fallen but also, because there would be fewer houses, rents would have risen by 10 per cent in Sydney alone by 2021 if Labor had won the election and the housing tax had been enacted. So it is a complete boondoggle. It really is quite embarrassing.

Those two taxes alone make up a large part of the $400 billion hit to the economy that the Labor Party would like to foist upon the Australian people. We are very happy to have an economic debate any time that Labor want to have one. Unfortunately, they are unable to draft their own policies and they are relying upon people at the ACTU and in the financial sector to draft their policies, which is very sad. There seems to be no sign of a revision coming, given that Chief Comptroller Swan has said that he wants to keep all their tax policies in place. We have been able to repair the budget so that we can guarantee essential services to Australians who rely upon those services, and we've done that without increasing taxes. Labor's policy, unfortunately, is clear: the taxes stay. I'm sure, in time, they will come to their senses and realise that it's totally unsustainable and ill-advised.

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I won't reflect on that last contribution too much, except to say that it's a strange obsession with Mr Swan that Senator Bragg has. I'm not sure what a chief comptroller is; I'm sure it's not something good. It's probably something that lives large in Senator Bragg's imagination. But really it's symbolic of a lack of a depth of understanding of the problem and a lack of a capacity to engage with one's responsibility as a backbench member of a government that's struggling to find an agenda that we're down to the bottom rung of university debating style attacks, and we should all try and do a bit better than that—as the emerging of Jacob Rees-Mogg of the Australian Senate.

The first step towards solving a problem is recognising that you have one. You have to be honest about it. You have to think about what has caused it. You have to consider what's likely to fix it. You have to think about what you can do and what you can contribute. Don't blame others. Don't blame the Labor Party after six years of government. Have a go at making it better. We're told that, 'If you have a go, you'll get a go'. Perhaps the Prime Minister and Senator Cormann should have a go at having a go. It would be a start.

Economic slowdown denialism is a bit like climate change denialism; the longer you allow it to persist, the higher the cost of inaction and the more likely it is that grave consequences ensue. So, is there a problem? Well, we should have a look at the evidence. On wages, we've got the lowest growth on record. The Wisden records of Australian wages contain no period where wages have grown by such small amounts. Beyond the slow growth in wages, the wage profit share is declining. Company profits are increasing at a much higher rate than wages are increasing. The promise of trickle-down economics has not been manifest for all Australian workers.

In terms of productivity, growth is at very low levels. The last wave of successful productivity reform really was in the Hawke-Keating period. It was based upon cooperation with the trade union movement, Senator Bragg, something that you would find hard to imagine, I know. It was based on cooperation between the institutions that represent workers and employers, and the stakeholders in the Australian economy. It was based on an enterprise bargaining system that worked, and that was based upon a fair process and cooperative principles. Not much, really, has happened since then in terms of productivity in Australian workplaces.

The government, in terms of productivity, only has one plan: enhanced management prerogative, more power for employers. We've got jobs—job creation in the economy—not good jobs, but people working two, three or four jobs to sustain a family. There have been two responses from the government really: firstly, 'It's not real,' and, secondly, 'Look over there.'

Senator Cormann today in question time—there is no possibility that this bloke will admit any problem; there is no index alternative to the recognised ones that he won't cite to quibble with the obvious. Today, it was some marginal shift in the Gini coefficient when he was asked about lower wages. I mean, really—the Gini coefficient? These characters haven't cared about inequality in the Australian economy in their lives. The next approach is to cite global headwinds. For a bloke from Western Australia, he's a guy who loves a yachting analogy more than is healthy, I think. The second approach is to say, 'Look over there,' and try to distract Australian voters with increasingly cruel approaches to people on welfare—drug testing older people on Newstart, drug testing people who really need a fair go. I think that the Australian community can do much better than the approach that has been offered by the government.

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

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I want to pass on what I've seen: from TI in the north to Tugun in the south, to Thargomindah in the west, from Cooktown to Coolangatta to Cunnamulla, shops are shutting, businesses are closing. Why is that important? Because rural industry is vital to our state, because there are more people living outside our capital city than inside. Yet Liberal-Labor policies are pursuing a process destroying Australia's productive capacity.

Here is a list of some of the actions from state and federal government. Energy currently has a renewable energy target of about 14 per cent. The Libs want to double it to 28 per cent, and Labor wants to quadruple it to 50 per cent. On climate, there's the same underlying policy, yet neither party has any empirical evidence proving human carbon dioxide is a cause of climate variability. Neither party will tax multinationals. As for economic mismanagement, both parties use budgets and elections to bribe and to mismanage the economy. Then there are the promises both parties have made to fix PFAS, yet they won't even listen to their own communities and they still deny compensation. On agriculture: Liberal-Labor policies have stolen property rights, taken water, raised water prices and raised energy prices, and now they're pushing the destruction of farmers' rights because of the Great Barrier Reef—all based on a lie.

There is a lack of a plan, plus a lack of understanding, a lack of listening and a lack of integrity. This is killing the productive capacity of our country. Queenslanders say that the MO of ScoMo is facade building, and that Labor is his ally. They exchange preferences, and we ask now: when will Labor and the Liberals merge? One Nation is the only alternative for the people.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the remaining few minutes of this debate I want to make a few points. The first thing I'm going to do is remind those opposite that there was an election in our recent past. An election is a competition of ideas. We each took a set of policy parameters to the people of Australia, and the people of Australia had their say. I find it very interesting that Senator Green was talking about infrastructure spending in Queensland. The situation that the voters in Queensland faced during the election was one where they considered two plans, and they delivered a pretty decisive result. I would encourage Senator Green to perhaps go back and have a look at the numbers that flowed in Queensland to the respective parties.

This is an issue that the government takes extraordinarily seriously. I wish to quote from a media release from the Treasurer, Mr Frydenberg. The media release is titled, 'Economic headwinds require strong economic management'. Acknowledging those economic headwinds is very important. The media release quoted, in part, the RBA talking about how growth in international trade has declined and how investment intentions have softened in a number of countries. It talked about the downgrading in the budget of the international economic growth rates. Mr Frydenberg went on to say:

At home, we face our own challenges with the impact of flood and drought, as well as a cooling housing market and its impact on household consumption.

When was this media release? Was it this week? Was it last week? No; it was before the election.

The government has been very up-front with the people of Australia about some of the challenges faced by the economy. We are being very realistic. At the election we took to the people of Australia a plan which set out how we were going to deal with the challenges that faced us, how we would keep our economy strong, how we would keep Australians in jobs and how we would maintain the 28 years of economic growth that all Australians are enjoying.

I think it's very important to remember that there are many people alive and in the workforce today who have only ever known positive economic growth from Australia as a nation. I, unfortunately, am a little bit older than that, so I can remember some of the recessions of the past. I was a teenager when we had 'the recession we had to have'—a devastating recession that devastated small business right across Australia, particularly in rural and regional Australia. It is something that I certainly remember with a great deal of trepidation. Those 28 years of economic growth are something that we should always celebrate but never take for granted. That is why this government took to the election an economic policy that would continue those years of economic growth and continue to keep our economy strong and resilient in the face of international economic headwinds.

Sitting suspended from 18:30 to 19:30