Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I inform the Senate that, at 8.30 am today, two 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:

"Australian families struggling with prices rises well above inflation for household essentials such as electricity and health care whilst the Morrison Government has no plan to reverse an economy characterised by expectations of below trend economic growth forecasts, and stalled wages growth".

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 long years of the Liberals being in government what we have seen is that the Australian economy has slowed substantially. Australians are struggling under the lacklustre leadership of the Morrison government. The government was re-elected without a real plan for the country, and there is plenty of evidence to back up my statement.

We have seen wages growth at record lows. That's what we're seeing. That's what Australians are confronted with. Net debt has more than doubled and gross debt has crashed through the half-a-trillion-dollar mark under the watch of those opposite. We will have countless senators come in after me and talk about how wonderful the government is, but the reality is that Australians are struggling. Living standards have stagnated. We know that the wages growth they talked about has not eventuated.

We've now had the IMF talking about the economic growth slowdown. They are lining themselves up with what the Reserve Bank has already done by cutting interest rates. Even the Reserve Bank governor has called on this government, countless times, to stimulate the economy. But what response have they had? Nothing. This is because what Mr Morrison was interested in—his economic plan for the future of this country—was all about giving $80 billion to multinational companies and $17 billion as a handout to the Australian banks.

People in my home state of Tasmania are feeling it. There are families now, right across my state—and, I believe, right across this country—who are resorting to only having one meal a day because they can't make ends meet. We know we have a health crisis in this country—again, particularly in my home state—with cuts by this government and the Liberal state government.

What we have seen is people resorting to going to accident and emergency because they can no longer afford to see their GP—that is, if they can get in to see the GP. We've got thousands of Australians dropping out of their private health insurance because they can't afford the increases. These are issues confronting families day after day. We only have to look at people in receipt of Newstart allowance. I don't know how anyone on that side of the chamber—I know they're out of touch, and they probably don't speak to many people who are on Newstart in this country—can ever expect people to exist, let alone live, on $40 a day. It is not enough.

What have we seen from this government in stimulating the economy? We haven't seen anything at all. What we've seen is power prices escalating in this country. That's what we've seen. Look at how much money Tasmanian families are paying for their power bills—over $1,979 per year. The average wage in Tasmania is a lot less than what it is in the rest of the country. So a family that's bringing home $50,000 a year is paying four per cent of that money—after tax, I might add—to ensure they can put their lights on. We know right across this country, in regional and rural areas, that the lights have been switched off because people have not been able to afford their power bills. That's the reality of what's happening.

It's not about the delivery of speaking notes that the government are relying on, which they kindly submitted to all the media outlets this week. What they are doing is trying to put out spin, because the Prime Minister is the master of spin. What Australians are looking for is real leadership. They want to have electricity prices brought down. They want to be able to see a GP when they need to. They don't want to have to line up at accident and emergency, because we already have our hospitals in crisis. We want to see those people who want to work get the help that they need. What we need is more investment in TAFE so that our young people who can't get into university and want to get a trade can get an education and the skills they need to contribute to our economy. (Time expired)

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Gallagher for bringing this MPI before us today, because for Labor it represents another own goal. MPI after MPI, question after question, the opposition are so bereft of ideas and inspiration for this nation that they continue to give us the opportunities to put on record our positive agenda for all Australians. I think I speak for all on this side in saying thank you very much indeed to those opposite.

This government is tackling cost-of-living pressures for Australian households, taking action to ease the strain in areas like tax, energy, housing and childcare costs. We are getting on with the job of implementing the plan that the Australian people voted for on 18 May. They voted for us to lower taxes so that they can keep more of what they earn. They voted to reduce the costs of doing business—reducing energy costs and fast-tracking deregulation. They voted to keep our budget strong and to guarantee the essential services that all of us rely upon. They voted for a higher standard of living and lower costs.

Labor may have changed their leader, but they haven't changed their policies. Australians will never forget the high-taxing, job-destroying, nation-weakening agenda that they took to the election. Labor are still the party of $387 billion of higher taxes—higher taxes on housing, higher taxes on superannuation, higher taxes on income, higher taxes on retirees and higher taxes on family businesses. Today, the AFR reports that Labor plan to create even more taxes to pay for their planned increase to Newstart. They're only interested in hitting Australians in the hip pocket, taking more of their hard-earned money so that they can create their version of a socialist utopia.

Whilst Australians were ultimately spared that fate, many in my home state of Western Australia are feeling the pressure of living under a Labor state government—a government that was elected saying one thing and is now doing the complete opposite. The McGowan government has slugged the people of Western Australia with household increases of $850 per year since being elected despite promising not to. They have targeted vulnerable families with increased charges and taxes, including a 10.9 per cent increase in the electricity supply charge in their first budget. The number of electricity disconnections for people who cannot afford to pay their electricity bill has gone up; it has reached a record 20,000. How did they respond? They cut the cost-of-living rebate for seniors and forced people in hardship to wait 180 days before they could receive Hardship Utility Grant Scheme payments. But wait, there's more. In their second budget, they increased by 40 per cent the cost of water consumption over 50,000 kilolitres per year. The Premier and his minister have tried to portray this as targeting the rich. However, the data clearly shows that it targets large families, multigenerational families and large properties in the outer suburbs—those who are doing it the toughest.

Under the McGowan state government, Western Australian families are struggling with high unemployment, falling house prices, the highest negative equity in the country and high levels of mortgage default. What happened to the plan for jobs which was going to deliver an employment bonanza of 50,000 jobs? I guess we'll never know. The McGowan government's mean-spirited cost-of-living increases come at a time when it is receiving a windfall gain of billions of dollars from the Morrison government's GST fix and high iron ore prices. Contrast this to the Liberal-National government's record on economic management and its remarkable achievement. Australia has completed its 28th consecutive year of annual economic growth. The people of Western Australia are acutely aware of what it's like to live under a Labor government. So, before those opposite come in here and lecture us, they should look at their own side first.

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

I rise to contribute to the debate on this matter of public importance. Wage growth has stalled considerably. Significantly, from 2008 to 2013 it was growing by an average of 3.3 per cent per annum. From 2013 to 2018 it was growing by an average of 2.2 per cent per annum. To put this into perspective, the CPI growth in 2018 was 2.1 per cent. This meant there was virtually no real wages growth last year. In fact, from 2010 to 2017 there was, on average, an increase of only 0.3 per cent in real wages. So much for this government's claims about being able to manage the economy! The government can stand there and try to claim that they are the economic managers and that they are pre-eminent in this space, yet we see these terrible statistics. The Gini coefficient, which measures economic inequality, has been increasing steadily and now stands at 0.337. We are one of the most unequal OECD countries in the world. In fact, it seems that we are rubbing shoulders with Greece, a country that is still recovering from a major recession.

My question is: what do families do with rising power prices when this government continues to invest and wants to invest in inefficient, carbon-polluting power instead of going for clean, renewable energy, which is the energy of the future and will help bring energy prices down? We are seeing one million Australians putting off seeing a doctor because they can't afford to. These are the real impacts of living without real wage growth. But then, with these rising prices, my major question is: what do people living in poverty do? In Anti-Poverty Week, I want to focus on those people. Of the three million people living in poverty, 740,000 are children. One of the major things the government, who claim to be good economic managers, could do is raise the rate of Newstart by at least $75 a week. You'd get an instant injection into the economy of up to $4 billion and 12,000 more jobs would be created—a lot of those in rural and regional areas. That is how we can help people meet the rising cost of living. That's how we can help people out of poverty.

Those struggling to make ends meet are having to go to places like Foodbank. At the beginning of Anti-Poverty Week, on the weekend, the Foodbank hunger report 2019 was launched. That report found that, over the past 12 months, the number of people seeking food relief increased by 22 per cent. Three in 10 food-insecure Australians are going a whole day without eating at least once a week. Single-parent households have the highest likelihood of experiencing food insecurity, at a rate of 47 per cent. Many of those affected are living in deep poverty. On average, they are $135 a week below the poverty line.

Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The cashless debit card will fix that.

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

I'll take the interjection from across the chamber. I was just told that the cashless debit card will fix that. How mistaken is this government! The cashless debit card punishes people and, in fact, takes away people's cash. It actually means they have less cash to spend—cash that would enable then to take advantage of second-hand goods or go to markets. Go out and talk to people who are trying to survive on the cashless debit card. It is punitive and it makes life harder. I've been out there. I've talked to a lot of people over the 12 years that income management has been going on in this country. If you'd been at the hearing on Monday night, you too would have heard about some of the impacts of the cashless debit card and the fact that income management in the Northern Territory has not met any of its objectives—not one!—and that's from an independent analysis. This government is failing to manage the economy for the people it is supposed to serve, and, in particular, those living in poverty.

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the reality of raising a family under the Morrison Liberal government. It comes as no surprise to me that the Labor members who have made a contribution, and Senator Siewert, are angry about the absolute ignorance that has been displayed by government senators around this issue. It is Anti-Poverty Week and the facts are frightening. I ask that they listen to the facts. It is not only the people on social security benefits who are finding it tough. It is the working families who are going to welfare agencies to get assistance with food. Surely that tells you something. Surely it does. The fact is that 13.2 per cent of Australians are living below the poverty line, many in deep poverty, which is classified as an average of $135 below the poverty line when that line is defined as 50 per cent of the median household income. You don't need these organisations, or business organisations, to tell you that not enough is being done by government, firstly, to create jobs and, secondly, to assist with the incomes of those who do not have jobs.

You're out there in your electorates and you have these people writing to you, knocking on your door, ringing you and emailing you and we have these glib remarks thrown across the chamber here, which just says to me that you're not interested. You're much more interested in media releases than in taking real action. That is what it tells me. Productivity Commission research finds that after 27 years of uninterrupted economic growth and prosperity the low income statistics have not changed, yet nine to 10 per cent of Australians are still defined as low income earners, which is the same figure as in 1992. For me, this was the most interesting thing that came out of question time today. We asked questions around the IMF slashing Australia's growth forecast but what we heard today lacked credibility. What we heard today was, 'We have a plan.' Well, the plan is not working. The IMF's forecast makes a mockery of the policies of the Morrison government. The fact is that confidence and growth are weak. The state of the economy is of genuine concern to everyday Australians, because they hear one thing from the government but they experience another. The Reserve Bank, industry, economists and so many sectors of society have told this government to fast-track infrastructure investment in order to generate jobs and economic activity. Have they been listened to? The answer, of course, is no. That is impacting so many families—

Senator Rennick interjecting—

I already just said. You're putting out media releases, but you're not actually doing anything. Please, listen. The fact that the government isn't listening is impacting on so many families and individuals in our communities—everyday Australians who are worried about wages, about a lack of work, about their children's education and about what will happen to them if they become ill. For every family in the country, the cost of essentials is skyrocketing. Electricity prices are increasing and child care has become unaffordable.

Australians are worried about the economy, but Mr Scott Morrison and the Liberals are pretending there is no problem. They have no plan and, regardless of whether they say they have a plan—as I've already said before—the plan is not working. They have no plan to deal with low wages and rising prices. They say they're concerned about wage theft. What do they do? They put out a discussion paper. This has been going on for years, but they put out a discussion paper. People getting ripped off, so what do they do? They put out a discussion paper. I hope they actually do something around wage theft. It's extraordinary that they haven't moved more quickly, but I hope that sometime they actually will do something that's tangible, that's practical and that will help. But they certainly do not have a coherent plan for our country.

Who said, 'If you have a go, you'll get a go'? Who said that? It's a slogan. It's the slogan from the Prime Minister, but he and his government steadfastly refuse to take any action to make 'having a go' work for too many Australians. Those having a go are applying for jobs that do not exist and are being pushed into poverty and despair under the Morrison government. These are facts. No matter how hard they work to get a job, the effort required to apply for a job, let alone 20 a month, while trying to stay fed, have a roof over their head and take care of their family is 'having a go'. And they deserve respect. Every day in question time we don't see that. There is no respect from the government to those people having a go.

Mr Morrison also says the best form of welfare is a job—that is, not only Mr Morrison but the rest of them. But what job, Mr Morrison? Anglicare's report Job availability snapshot 2019shows that having a go is pointless when there are not enough jobs in existence. Kasy Chambers, the Executive Director of Anglicare Australia, said:

Our system is failing those who need the most help to find work. Our research shows that at least five of these jobseekers are competing for each job at their level. There aren't enough jobs at this skill level to meet demand in any part of the country.

… … …

The situation is toughest in South Australia and—

in my home state of—

Tasmania. In South Australia, nine of these jobseekers are competing for each suitable job. And in Tasmania, a staggering 14 jobseekers are competing for each one of these jobs.

What does that mean? Let's look at if you lose your job later in life and have a family. Where do you turn to pay your mortgage? As we know, rental prices are skyrocketing and power prices are through the roof, while Newstart has had no meaningful increase in 20 years.

Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's indexed twice a year.

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Goodness gracious me! Is that the best he's got? The Anglicare report I mentioned also states that, across the nation, Centrelink and jobactive network have suspended payments for 580,000 people for not trying hard enough to land a job. Kasy Chambers said:

But our research shows the jobs just aren't there.

So, by any measure, the government have failed. They are full of slogans, but that's not going to help Australian families. They are doing it tough. I haven't even got enough time to talk about Foodbank or Loaves and Fishes— (Time expired)

Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Here are the facts. State governments run energy. It beggars belief that you could come into this chamber and try and blame the federal government for what is the responsibility of the state government. It's not rocket science. Read the Constitution. Let me tell you something. This is how it works. The swing state in energy, like it is with the economy, like it is with elections, is Queensland. Queensland has power capacity of 14 gigawatts, yet we use only 10 gigawatts. What that means is that the extra four gigawatts goes around the rest of the contrary.

On the cost, just last week a private industry decided that they're going to spend $350 million on creating a new solar wind farm in Queensland. That is a white elephant, because we don't need the energy. We've already got the energy. Any energy that's brought onto the system is going to have to go down to New South Wales or the south side, South Australia. The problem with that is that there's only a one-gigawatt transmission line. We already have four gigawatts of excess transmission, so why on earth would you go and build more renewable energy sources when there's no need for it? Why would you do that?

What makes this even worse is that the Queensland state Labor government think this is fantastic. They're trying to kill their own business. You see, Queenslanders know not to sell their power assets. They swear by their coal-powered power stations, as Labor found out, to their detriment, at the last federal election. Their own state government wants to destroy the power assets of the people of Queensland. The Queensland state Labor government is boasting about going to 50 per cent renewable energy. They want to destroy the very asset that belongs to the Queensland people. This $325 million investment is going to have to be absorbed through higher energy prices. It's not that hard to understand. We have an overinvestment in renewables—

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, on a point of order: I think the senator misunderstands what the actual MPI is about, because he's certainly not talking about families.

Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With respect, that's not a valid point of order and I'm sure you can recognise that.

Stirling Griff (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't consider it to be a point of order on relevance in this particular instance.

Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of course I'm talking about families. Families have power bills. It's not rocket science. They have power bills that come to them from the Queensland state government. Let's look at what the Queensland state government did last year. They gouged an extra $269 million out of their energy assets—an increase of 26.7 per cent. I'm going to repeat that again, just so Hansard gets it: an extra $269 million. Annastacia Palaszczuk and Jackie Trad are gouging the Queensland people. Unbelievable. And they want to make matters worse, because now they've brought the closure of Callide B power station in Biloela forward by 10 years. This is alarming, because that power station helps power one of Queensland's industrial powerhouses: Gladstone. If Gladstone goes, Queensland goes. If Queensland goes, Australia goes. How dare you jeopardise the town of Gladstone, a major manufacturing hub in this country! One of the great works of Leo Hielscher and the Bjelke-Petersen government was setting up the Yarwun alumina refinery using their own bauxite up in Weipa and creating jobs for regional Queensland. And that is now under jeopardy.

But let's get onto health costs and the blowout of Queensland Health. I wonder why that is? Let me see. The cost of the blowout and the cost of the Sunshine Coast hospital—

Senator Carol Brown interjecting—

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And how did that happen? The unions gouged all that money, just like they're now doing with the casino. They're going to knock off work when it gets hotter than 28 degrees. Fancy knocking off work when it gets hotter than 28 degrees in Queensland—unbelievable! In the last five years, the federal coalition government has funded Queensland Health by an extra $1.6 billion, and where does that money go? It certainly hasn't decreased waiting lists, has it? It hasn't decreased ambulance waiting lists. It hasn't decreased— (Time expired)

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 respond to Senator Gallagher's matter of public importance motion today. Senator Gallagher has raised a real concern for all Australians, yet she has not identified the real problem nor offered a real solution. If we are going to address these real problems for all Australians, then it is time we give up what created the current mess—the old ways of the Liberal-National and Labor, Greens parties. We need real change. Labor, Greens and the Liberal-National parties are letting Australians down, and we are all paying for the Lib-Lab duopoly's lack of vision. In this very chamber today, the Lib-Lab duopoly let multinational petroleum companies mine and export our gas resources without these mega-rich companies paying anything like their fair share of tax. The Liberal-Labor duopoly let multinationals, the world's biggest tax avoiders, off the hook again.

This decision by the Morrison government means that everyday Australians will have to make up for the lost revenues that the government and Labor have given away repeatedly in tax measures. Australians could now be paying less tax or receiving improved services if the Lib-Lab duopoly had ensured that multinational companies pay their fair share of tax. This Lib-Lab duopoly has contributed to Australians paying higher costs for essentials, like food, water, phone, internet, electricity, health care, aged care, transport and tolls, and much more. This government is hitting Australians where it hurts.

I do agree with Senator Gallagher that the Morrison government has no plan and no vision to help everyday Australians, and what we need is change. Years of economic mismanagement and of doing what the Prime Minister's unseen and unaccountable international bureaucracies want has harmed the economic fabric and stability of our great nation—that foreign bureaucracy that's ceded our sovereignty to them. No more building facades please. No more false talk. It is time for real plans and real reform. It's time for the Morrison government to stop trying to look good and instead do good. (Time expired)

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm grateful to have the opportunity to contribute to a debate on a set of topics that are so crucially important to millions of Australians, particularly those who find themselves struggling to make ends meet due to the low wage growth and the rising cost of living under this government. This is a government with its head firmly in the sand. This is a government that has no plan for wages, no plan to tackle the cost of living, no plan for our faltering economy. This is a government that continues to sing its own praises and say, 'Everything is fine; everything's okay,' when, clearly, it is not. In fact, I think they've said, 'Everything is just fine,' so many times they're genuinely starting to believe it themselves. But nobody else believes them.

Today, the IMF added themselves to the long line of economists that are concerned about Australia's slow economic growth. Their substantial downgrade of Australian economic growth forecasts—the second downgrade for Australia this year—is a damning assessment of the Treasurer's claim that the government is implementing just the right economic policies for our country. Only on Monday we had Deloitte reporting that many of the problems and weaknesses we have in the Australian economy are homegrown problems. Even before that, the Reserve Bank was making similar points. In other words, our problems are the government's own doing. The IMF—amongst a host of other organisations, including state governments—have called on the government to provide fiscal stimulus urgently and immediately and invest in infrastructure to boost our economy. But, despite falling consumer confidence and growth that is expected to be slower than that of either Spain or Greece, we see no action from the government. We should not underestimate the importance of these forecasts. The IMF are ringing the alarm bells, and they are ringing them loudly. We should listen.

This government has presided over—and let's make sure we all hear this—the following record: the slowest economic growth since the financial crisis, declining living standards, household debt at record highs, 1.9 million Australians who are looking for work or more work, business investment that is the lowest since the 1990s, declining productivity, wages that are growing at one-sixth the pace of profits and a doubling of gross national debt. What a stellar record! Can the government really be proud of this? Can they really get away with telling us, 'Everything's okay, it's under control, we've got a plan'? It seems to me that wherever you look there are economic weaknesses that are not being dealt with, homegrown problems this government won't admit to and issues that are being ignored.

This is not good news for Australians who are desperate for a pay rise. People need to be respected for their hard work in their pay packets, and they need to earn enough to live, but annual wage growth has not topped 2½ per cent since before December 2014 and in the most recent figures was at only 2.3 per cent. This government has one of the worst records on wage growth from any government in our nation's history. Surely a core responsibility of any government is to make sure people have good, secure jobs with decent wages, yet this government has no apparent plans to get wages moving again.

Who will pay for their failures? It will be hardworking Australians—Australians who are increasingly feeling the pinch because, while their wages are flat, the cost of everything else just keeps going up. Cost of child care—up. Cost of housing—up. Cost of health care—up. Cost of education—up. Cost of food—up. Cost of energy—up. Cost of transport—up. Wage growth—flat. This is a recipe for a family's struggle to make ends meet.

Earlier this week, we saw the release of Foodbank's hunger report for 2019. It reported that more than one in five Australians, or 21 per cent, experienced food insecurity in the last 12 months. That's one in five Australians experiencing food insecurity in this country in the last 12 months. That includes over one million children. Can you imagine not having enough money to provide food for your children? That is what is happening in Australia today under this government. Telling her story for the report, a single mother from Perth said:

After I pay rent and electricity, I'm left with hardly any money to buy food. I've gone days with no food just so my son can eat.

Another woman shared her story from Victoria and said:

I hate that I can't cook proper meals and sit and eat with my child. She always asks why I'm not eating with her, but we don't always have enough for both of us to eat. I'd rather miss out, so she doesn't have to.

No-one should be in that situation in this country. It turns out that the most common reason for people going hungry in Australia is an unexpected bill or an unexpected expense that they just don't have the income to meet. This is what happens when your wage growth falls behind the cost of living—you end up just one pay cheque away from crisis.

In the last 12 months, there has been a 22 per cent increase in the number of people who are seeking food relief from charities. That is a huge increase, and it points directly at the growing cost-of-living crisis that this government has overseen. I would genuinely advise everyone in this chamber to spend some time this week, which is Anti-Poverty Week, sitting down and reading the Foodbank hunger report 2019. It is shocking. It's upsetting. It's inexcusable. It is these Australians that this government, with its lack of action on stagnant wage growth and on the rising cost of living, is letting down.

It's time that this government actually did some work. We need it to bring forward a real plan to deal with our faltering economy. Let's give the government some ideas, because they don't seem to have too many of their own. They could start by raising Newstart. They could bring forward their infrastructure investments. They could reverse the penalty rate cuts that impacted so many low-paid workers in this country. They could create good, secure jobs and, instead of attacking the role of the trade union movement in this country, they could support the role of unions in our society and in our economy in helping to generate and stimulate wage growth.

But this is a government that loves to give us all a lecture about just how well it is doing and what great economic managers it has. But its talking points just couldn't be further from the truth. What we know from all of the research and all of the reports that have just come out and from all of the conversations that we're having with people who are struggling around Australia is that people are in real trouble in our country today. Wages are going nowhere. We have the lowest wage growth on record. The economy is faltering—both the IMF and Deloitte have told us that this week—and this government just doesn't have a plan to sort it out.