Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I inform the Senate that at 8:30 am today 19 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 Chisholm:

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

The Government's failure to deliver on a plan for jobs and economic recovery while more than a million Australians are currently unemployed and a further 400,000 Australians will lose their jobs by Christmas.

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.

Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This matter before us goes to the core of government and leadership, that matter being the government's failure to deliver on a plan for jobs and economic recovery while more than a million Australians are currently unemployed and a further 400,000 Australians will lose their jobs by Christmas. As of today, we've had the news that Australia is officially in its first recession for almost 30 years. The June quarter GDP numbers show the economy went backwards by seven per cent, the worst fall on record. That's more than three times the previous biggest fall of two per cent in 1974. The scale of this downturn is vast when compared to Australia's last official recession, when the economy shrank by 1.3 per cent and 0.1 per cent over two consecutive quarters. This is the single biggest immediate challenge that the Morrison government faces.

The Australian people expect leadership on this matter and they have not seen it to date. In fact, they have seen the opposite. In my home state of Tasmania, unemployment is disturbingly high. More than 50,000 Tasmanians are looking for work or for more hours. Tasmania has lost 15,500 jobs since February—6,700 of them are full-time jobs. Youth unemployment is frightening, and a deeply worrying number of mature-aged workers are also out of work or searching for many more hours. Because of the nature of this recession and the sectors that have been hardest hit, we have seen a disproportionate number of women thrown into unemployment. Deloitte Access Economics' Business outlook report indicates that Tasmania's economic situation is set to get worse before it improves. The report said Tasmania's earlier boom was driven largely by the international education and tourism sectors and that Tasmania was deeply exposed to the impact of coronavirus related travel and operating restrictions. As JobKeeper payments are reduced, we will see the full force of that impact. Deloitte expects unemployment to rise in Tasmania to 8.6 per cent in 2021. That means tens of thousands of Tasmanians unemployed and struggling, looking for a way forward—a way forward that government should be showing them.

But what have we seen from this government? Instead of a jobs plan, the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, and Treasurer Frydenberg want to wind back JobKeeper, cut super and freeze the pension. This recession will be deeper and unemployment queues will be longer because the Morrison government is leaving too many people behind. The trouble is we're dealing with a government struggling with its own ideological base, a government that is facing a backlash from its own backbench for spending the money that is keeping so many people in jobs. It was dragged kicking and screaming into providing wage subsidies through JobKeeper and is now like a rabbit in the headlights. All it can talk about is dropping the rate of JobKeeper and then phasing it out. It is inevitable that this recession will be deeper and unemployment queues longer because the Morrison government is just leaving those people behind.

We have seen ACOSS warning of a social and economic catastrophe once most COVID-19 government supports are removed. That process will start later this month. Tens of thousands of businesses with their workforce sustained on JobKeeper are looking to the government for the next steps. On the west coast of Tasmania, 41 per cent of businesses applied for JobKeeper support. In Burnie, 39.4 per cent applied. In Devonport, 40.1 per cent applied. On the east coast of Tasmania, over 51 per cent applied—over half. That's how very serious the situation is.

Last night I spoke in this place about the impact of the COVID crisis on north-west Tasmania. I spoke about the viable businesses that cannot recover until tourism and travel restart and borders reopen. The car hire company on King Island and the magnificent Cape Wickham golf course on the northern tip of that island represent just one sector that needs a plan. All cutting JobKeeper will do for employees of businesses like those is make it even harder to pay their bills and buy food. Without a plan for jobs, that money being stripped out of local economies will be disastrous. There are many businesses in a similar situation on King Island, hundreds like that in north-west Tasmania and tens of thousands in our country. They're absolutely viable and waiting for coronavirus restrictions to ease, but it will take a plan for them to truly spring to life again. All of this is happening against a backdrop of increasing inequality, presided over by this government—the Morrison government.

Before COVID hit, according to research released by ACOSS and the University of New South Wales today, the incomes of those in the top 20 per cent were six times higher than those in the bottom 20 per cent. This is worse than in 2015-16, when the ratio was five times higher. So I have a tip for those opposite struggling for ideas: your plan needs to address this growing inequality. It needs to have a focus on long-term, secure jobs with decent wages. But, instead of working on this plan, Prime Minister Morrison and Treasurer Frydenberg want to wind back JobKeeper, cut super and freeze the pension.

This government is busy shirking its duties. It's so busy avoiding accountability in this area, still dreaming of some kind of magical snapback to the way things were and hoping it will wake up and find that this has all been a terrible dream. Well, I have news: this is not a bad dream. It is the new reality for Australia, and hundreds of thousands of Australians are terribly, terribly frightened that they have no future, that they won't find work, that their businesses won't be able to recover and that their kids will never have a decent, secure job. They need to know the government has a plan—a plan for jobs; a plan that protects and boosts viable businesses and their employees; a plan that helps people in less viable businesses refocus and innovate; a plan to retrain and reskill; a plan that shakes up grasping and falling job service provider networks; a plan that turns Centrelink into a safe place where the skilled staff who have suffered under this government's policy and punishment ethic can now show their real skills in helping people navigate the system and in pointing them in the direction of opportunities and support; a plan that works with school leavers and TAFE and university graduates to identify work opportunities and move towards them; a plan for arts and entertainment; a plan for the university sector that doesn't involve making university degrees unaffordable; a plan to support mature-aged workers who have joined the unemployment queue in their thousands back into work; a plan for women; a plan for young workers; a plan to help people who have drained their superannuation accounts rebuild their retirement savings; a plan that is developed sector by sector, taking into account the subtlety and needs of each one; a plan for tourism; a plan for hospitality; a plan for manufacturing; a plan for communications; a plan for energy; a plan for early childhood education; a plan for aged care; a plan for skills and education; and a plan for primary industry. Let's see that plan for jobs and industry from this government before the toecutters get to work on JobKeeper.

This government is at the crossroads now. They can have a vision for healing this country, for developing real jobs and for addressing inequality or they can continue on with their pathetic, ragtag, piecemeal, bandaid approach, bickering amongst themselves about ideology and watch this recession—this new reality—deepen, worsen and go on for longer than it needs to. I say to the members opposite: you have so much work to do, and it's time you got on with it.

I said last night in this place to the dysfunctional gathering on the other side: you have shown the country that you are spectacularly good at breaking things. You've already broken Centrelink and you absolutely broke aged care. You have punished the unemployed, lumbered them with illegal debts, disrespected them and kept them in abject poverty, and now our economy is broken. People's hearts and lives are breaking as they face years without work and the poverty that ensues. Others face the demise of businesses they've dedicated their working lives to building as their children join unemployment queues and face despair. It's well past time for you, the Morrison government, to demonstrate to the Australian people that you are up to the job, that you are capable of fixing it and that you have a plan for the future of Australia—a well thought-out plan—that picks up all the people along the way.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have heard today confirmed what we really already knew: that the global pandemic that has smashed the world economy has not left Australia untouched. Our economic situation is almost as dire as it's ever been, thanks to this global pandemic which has shut down international travel and called for the need for serious restrictions on Australian businesses. Of course that is going to lead to significant economic decline. Unfortunately, very, very many people have lost their jobs in the last few months in this country because of the pandemic.

All sides of politics were calling for levels of restrictions—in fact the calls for restrictions and lockdowns were probably louder coming from the other side of the chamber. It seems to me today that those making complaints about the economic situation don't seem to be referring back to the fact that they were very loud in calling for a lockdown, calling for restrictions to be placed on Australian businesses and calling for restaurants to close and tourism to shut down. Well, guys, it's pretty clear that when you shut down businesses and you make people lock down in their own homes there are going to be people who lose their jobs. There are going to be businesses that go out the back door. Unfortunately, that's been the consequence of what we've had to do.

It makes it important that we work hard. Today's figures show clearly it's very important that we work hard and cooperatively across the whole of Australia to reopen our economies, because the best way of getting people back into a job is to get back to an open economy as soon as we can. I very much hope that later this week the Premiers drop all this ridiculous political state of origin they seem to be playing and work together to get those jobs back. That's the most desperate thing we need.

In the long-term, how are we going to create jobs in this country? How are we going to rekindle our labour markets and for people to get back into work? It's pretty clear it's going to have to come through the private sector—that's where jobs have been lost. There haven't been jobs lost in the public sector. There's only a limited number that the public sector can employ at any one time. It's going to have to come from providing confidence to private businesses in this country to reinvest in the economy, to re-employ people to grow their businesses. We're going to need the confidence in businesses to make those hiring decisions.

How are we going to do that? To give businesses confidence, you make it easier for them to do business. It's not rocket science. If you make it easier for people to do business, they will do more business and they will employ more people, and we will be able to get back on our feet sooner rather than later. It's a pretty simple recipe. We should be focusing on things like lowering taxes. We should be focusing on getting rid of red tape on businesses so they can set up businesses and employ people. We should be investing in infrastructure that can help grow our economy and provide returns.

On every one of those fronts the Australian Labor Party in the last few years has been an absolute barrier to achieving those aims and ends. So let's just remind people of the history of the past few years and of what the Australian government wanted to do pre the coronavirus. We wanted to lower taxes. We wanted to lower company taxes. We wanted to lower personal income taxes, and the Labor Party has opposed various tax measures through the last few years. In fact, they opposed the company tax measures completely. They didn't want to put lower taxes on businesses.

Now they come to this place and say we should create jobs. Well, if we had lower taxes we'd be in a much better position to create jobs, but the Labor Party opposed that. And on personal income taxes they've opposed various measures that were put in place to lower personal income taxes as well. Maybe we'll see the Labor Party reconsider its position on taxes, but I didn't hear any of that in the previous contribution. I didn't hear one mention of the word 'tax'. If you're not going to lower taxes, how are you going to create jobs?

The other way we could make business easier in this country is to reduce red tape—get rid of regulation—another thing I didn't hear from Senator Urquhart. Is the Australian Labor Party now going to support efforts to take regulation off the backs of Australian businesses and unlock potential and hope for the Australian economy? Again, over the past few years, the Australian Labor Party has consistently opposed these attempts in this place. Right now there's a test for the Australian Labor Party on the Notice Paper. We want to make it easier for projects to be approved in this country. We want to make it simpler and easier for those who want to invest in this country to achieve approval under our environmental laws, here in Canberra and at the state level.

In fact, they're very similar measures to the ones we put in place after the 2013 election. We were elected on a platform to establish a one-stop shop so that environmental approvals in this country could be done at just one level without the duplication and, potentially, delay that occurs for people who just want to create jobs in this nation. We were elected with that mandate. And what did the Australian Labor Party do after the 2013 election? They teamed up with their mates in the Greens—it's basically a Greens-Labor party in this place now; they're basically in coalition with each other. The Greens-Labor party joined together to oppose that reduction in regulation, and we have seen environmental approval times blow out over the past five years. The Productivity Commission report released earlier this year, right after the coronavirus started, showed it was taking around two years to get approval for a major project, and it's now over three years; it's now over 1,000 days to get something approved.

So, we're going to come back and try to get that reduction in red tape. I haven't heard yet what the Australian Labor Party's position on that is. I don't believe they've completely rejected it yet. The Labor Party comes in with matters of public importance on the Notice Paper, saying they want to create jobs and they want a jobs plan. Well, here you go, guys; here's a plan. Here's a plan to cut red tape, decrease the time it takes to get things approved and create jobs. Are you going to agree to it? We don't know yet.

In the past couple of weeks the Labor Party's also opposed investments in infrastructure. We saw this week the Labor Party stand up and try to stop investments in coal fired power here in this country—another election commitment that was made by the federal government last year, and the Labor Party are trying to knock off that investment that's been put forward by a traditional owner company in North Queensland. The Labor Party are again teaming up with their mates in the Greens and trying to knock that off. The Labor Party's also been opposed to dams being built in this country. That's a real key thing we can do as a nation to create jobs: unlock our water resources, invest in our agricultural capacity and create jobs in farming. Again, that's something the Labor Party has been opposed to.

The one thing I heard from Senator Urquhart that I did agree with is, 'Let's get back to manufacturing.' It was a brief mention—very brief—about having a plan for manufacturing. We do need that; we desperately need that. But that is not going to happen unless we reduce energy prices, so we need the Australian Labor Party to listen to Mr Fitzgibbon on their side, listen to those who have common sense about energy, because they're divided over things like coal and gas. If we're not going to use our natural resources, like coal and gas, we will not get back to making things. The US is getting back to making things; they're doing it. They're bringing jobs back to the United States. How are they doing it? They're using their natural resources. They're unlocking their gas resources in the Permian Basin in Texas, and that is driving their country ahead. But the Labor Party hasn't quite worked out yet whether they're going to support that plan to get manufacturing going again.

I've been working with my Nationals colleagues as well to do more to rekindle that manufacturing industry. A number of us think we should do more. We should look to take greater countervailing action against countries that abuse the international trading system, including the People's Republic of China, who are currently subsidising the export of pesticides from their country. We need to look into that so that we save the New Farm factory in Melbourne. We should be looking to set up a development bank again in this country, to help support manufacturing industries. And we should be looking to provide investment allowances and lower taxes for those who expend and invest in manufacturing in this country. Those are all forward-thinking things that we should be looking at, and I hope the Australian Labor Party brings forward that sort of practical idea and leaves their partnership with the Greens at the door. In all I heard there before in terms of what they think should be done, the only cogent thing I heard from Senator Urquhart in her contribution was that we need to keep JobKeeper going.

The support we've provided through JobKeeper has been absolutely essential but is not a long-term plan for jobs. It cannot be sustained for much longer at the cost of roughly $10 billion a month in recent months. It is not a plan to keep jobs on life support forever. You cannot keep someone on life support forever. We need to look beyond that and we need the Labor Party to look seriously at this. Are the Australian people going to believe that the Labor Party, who are in lock step with the Labor Environment Activist Network, founded by Senator McAllister over there, are going to team up with us to lower taxes, lower regulation and invest in nation-building infrastructure like dams? I don't believe it and I don't think the Australian people believe it either.

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

I rise to contribute to the debate on the government's failure to deliver a plan for jobs and economic recovery while more than a million Australians are currently unemployed and a further 400,000 Australians are going to lose their jobs by Christmas. They sort of have a plan—that is, to trash the environment and trash universities and students' chances of going to university, while the government are fostering a fossil-fuel, gas-led so-called recovery, which of course it won't be. That is not a plan; that is the road to disaster for both people and our planet.

While the government seems to be willing to stop at nothing in order to achieve that, we are deeply concerned that they are condemning Australians to live in poverty come September. What will life look like for millions of Australians after the rate of coronavirus supplement is cut by $300 a fortnight at the end of September? And there is no plan for what happens after December. People don't know what happens after December. It could go to $40 a day after December.

An additional 740,000 people are going to be pushed into poverty come the end of September because, once that $300 is cut from the coronavirus supplement, it takes that payment below the poverty line. The poverty rates for people on JobSeeker and youth allowance will return to 23 per cent. And 1.1 million children will be living in households where the income support payments are cut. More than 400,000 Victorians will have their income support payments reduced. People will be pushed into rental stress and default on their mortgages. And what does that do to our economy? I'll tell you what: it sends it into a nosedive. When you take that money out of our economy, you are into a nosedive.

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

Today's national accounts are devastating news for Australians and for the Australian economy. Senator Canavan said there are no great surprises there, but it is indeed very bad news: a seven per cent fall in economic activity, the biggest on record, the biggest contraction since the Great Depression. There are now a million people unemployed, and there will be circa 1½ million people unemployed by Christmas. So record unemployment now will be getting much worse by the time we get to Christmas. It is likely unemployment will be circa 10 per cent, and there are no prospects of a real recovery until 2022. That's the picture outlined. I want to give a clear outline of my view and the Labor view, reflecting our priorities, our values. I think that the government's response reflects their priorities and their values.

Firstly, the Australian economy was in deep trouble in 2019. Profound structural weaknesses were neglected and glossed over by this government. There was no growth in wages. There was falling productivity, anaemic levels of growth, a hollowing out of the labour market so there were no good jobs left anymore—just casual jobs being produced in the economy—and a decline in Australia's capacity to make things and in our export complexity.

The response of the government at the beginning of this year was slow and uncertain. That has made things much, much worse today than they should be. At the beginning of the stimulus package that they were dragged to, kicking and screaming, the government had a focus. I know that the Prime Minister said today in question time that he didn't hesitate to implement JobKeeper and JobSeeker. He said, 'We did not hesitate.' Well, he was reported as having said, 'I'm not going to have a bar of it.' They were still desperately trying to keep their 'back in black' surplus promise. There is a big gap between what the government say they did in March and what they actually did, because I, along with my Labor colleagues, was here making the argument for a fair dinkum stimulus package and a wage subsidy package that would keep Australian workers and their businesses connected and I remember the howls of derision and the outright rejection that came from the other side of this parliament.

The jobs crisis is being made much, much worse now and will be much, much worse than it should be because there is no jobs plan from this government. We know what the impact of long-term unemployment is, particularly in our regions and our suburbs. People opposite may not feel it and they may not see it, and they may not be able to empathise with the impact of long-term unemployment, but on this side of the chamber we do.

The government's management of this economic crisis looks an awful lot like their management of the aged-care system. The political strategy, at least, is identical. We all know that the coronavirus pandemic will have a very significant effect on global growth. The World Bank says that there will be a contraction of about 5.2 per cent. But today the government and Senator Cormann blame the pandemic. They blame the states. They blame anybody else but themselves, minimise the role of government, minimise the responsibility of government—possibly because they can't imagine government having a role in dealing with this crisis—duck accountability and avoid parliament. That has been a key feature of this government's political response this year—avoid the parliament, run from accountability in the parliament and then make a series of announcements with no delivery. You can take the marketing manager out of Tourism Australia, but you will never take the marketing bias out of this Prime Minister.

There are big challenges coming with the coronavirus pandemic. The wave of infections in Victoria illustrates that we are all vulnerable. All parts of Australia are vulnerable. The crisis in Victoria has occasioned a whole lot of cheap pointscoring from the other side of this chamber. There are senators on the other side of the chamber who are for open borders one week and for closed borders the next. They decry public health requirements one day and demand them the next. This hyperpoliticisation of the crisis is a key feature of why this government is unable to deal with, manage and find a plan for the Australian economy and Australian jobs. It's pretty straightforward: follow the health advice, roll your sleeves up, do some work and develop a credible plan that can lift the Australian economy out of the torpor that it's in.

Senator Canavan really did set out the government's position, which is to cut taxes, cut wages, cut red tape—by which he means, I think, just remove environmental protections—and cut services, like their 2014, 2015 and 2016 budgets all did, particularly in regard to aged-care funding. These are the people who've adopted, as the Treasurer said, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher as their role models. Contrast that with what the Australian government did in 2008-09, when the global economy contracted by nearly three per cent because of the global financial crisis: strong early action—going households, going hard, going early—that delivered confidence. And the Australian economy did not contract over that period.

What are Australian families to make of this: no prospect of recovery with this government until 2022, families who can't keep their heads above water now, JobKeeper and JobSeeker being cut, and the prospect of looming unemployment? When will they have a government that's in their corner—that backs them, backs Australians—and is capable of doing the right thing?

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you so much, Senator Ayres; I haven't had a chuckle like that for a while. To be honest, the fact that you could deliver that with a straight face was really quite extraordinary.

This week and last week, I've responded to some pretty ridiculous accusations from Labor. Labor has consistently made claims about the Morrison government that are not only blatantly hypocritical but blatantly false and, like we just heard from Senator Ayres, sometimes even a little bit entertaining. But the absolute gall demonstrated by Labor in this parliament today is as unprecedented as the times we now face as a country. They're a bumbling, stumbling, woefully inadequate opposition whose handling of this crisis in Labor-led states is destroying businesses and directly contributing to job losses.

We know Labor are not about job creation, not about the private sector. They're all about making sure that the socialist Left within their party are being looked after and that the magic pudding somehow will just keep giving and giving. They're not about supporting workers, not about supporting economic growth and job creation. Yet all they can do is accuse the Morrison government of not doing enough to maintain jobs in this country. They should be ashamed of not supporting strategies that support Australian workers. It's no wonder even the unions are walking away from Labor.

And why wouldn't Labor be getting desperate? Why wouldn't they want to distract the Australian public from their mishandling of this crisis under pressure? It takes real leadership to prevail. They want to talk about jobs—awesome! Let's talk about jobs. There has been no relaxation of restrictions in Queensland, where tourism and hospitality businesses are going to the wall. I probably should make sure that I do cover off on that: restrictions are being relaxed in Queensland—if you're a footballer. Restrictions are being relaxed if you're Dannii Minogue or a celebrity. And restrictions are being relaxed if you're working on some TV show that's currently a hotspot or you're Eddie McGuire. Of course they're being relaxed, because we know Labor love to suck up to celebrities as much as they possibly can.

Of course, we're talking about everyday Australians. We're talking about the people who live on the New South Wales border, who are so deeply impacted by these restrictions. We're talking about the fact that 80 per cent of tourism to the Gold Coast is generated from Victoria and New South Wales, yet Premier Palaszczuk, in a bid to protect her own job, is destroying the jobs of all of those hospitality and tourism workers on the Gold Coast. Let's have a look at some of the figures, because perhaps they're not fully understood by those opposite. Tourism and hospitality are two of the most labour-intensive sectors and therefore create more jobs—again, guys, for your benefit, they create more jobs—in the private sector than any other sector for every dollar spent.

So what happened in April of this year in terms of overnight spending? How much money was spent in the hospitality and tourism sector in April 2020 compared with April 2019? We saw that the spend was 91 per cent down. Only nine per cent of what was spent in April of the previous year was spent in April 2020. As we started to see restrictions relax, things did improve a little bit. Things came back ever so slightly, so that they were down in May by only 82 per cent. Then Premier Palaszczuk blocked it all off and shut down this industry and is absolutely refusing to support what would have been considered a pretty big part of the economy in Queensland, I would have thought. There's that expression 'beautiful one day, perfect the next', whereas now it's 'beautiful one day, paradise lost the next', certainly for all those small business owners in the tourism and hospitality sectors.

This issue doesn't just affect those in the tourism and hospitality sector. It's not just the hotels and restaurants. The tourism sector is bigger than that. It's also about the travel agents, the petrol stations and the roadhouses. It's about the shops in airports and all of those businesses that are so desperately impacted by the closure of the hospitality and tourism industry. So why would these restrictions be so tight? In areas where there are no COVID-19 infections, some businesses are closed and others are boarded up. Workers are at home and, as each week passes, they are less likely to have a job to return to. We should all be working together to ensure that our nation is able to stop the virus and maintain jobs. I realise that might be like walking and chewing gum at the same time for those opposite, which is probably not one of their top 10 skill sets, but it would be worth giving it a go at some point. The best that Labor premiers can do is stubbornly maintain a series of poor positions that are purely designed for political gain and are definitely not about preserving jobs. In the dictatorship of the Republic of Palaszczuk, the Premier won't even let the sick and dying go to her hospitals—hospitals for Queenslanders. I wonder if she is thinking about giving back any of that federal money that is being spent on those hospitals that are for all Australians. Of course, she would prefer to see the death of an unborn twin than risk her career.

What chance do the tourism operators, bar and restaurant owners, store owners and other business owners in this great tourism state have now? Businesses along the coast and regional areas are seeing zero trade. They have no tourists, no business and no jobs to return to. And now we learn that Premier Palaszczuk is refusing to talk to the New South Wales Premier. I will come to Premier Dan Andrews and what's happening in Victoria and why ultimately I think the second wave there is fundamentally responsible for the size of our economic downturn, but Annastacia Palaszczuk is not going to let Dan outdo her. Premier Andrews is working constructively with Premier Berejiklian on increasing the exclusion zone around the borders, ensuring that health treatment is accessible and ensuring that teachers and kids at school who live two or three kilometres from a border are able to cross over, attend school and participate in a learning environment—but not our friend, Annastacia. She won't even talk to the Premier of New South Wales. It's a little bit frightening considering the success that New South Wales is having with contact tracing. It would be a pretty good idea, I would say, for Premier Palaszczuk to pick up the phone to Gladys.

I will come back to Victoria. Premier Andrews is certainly doing his best to emulate Mao Zedong at the moment, with his handling of this pandemic that's costing our nation billions every week and putting the futures and livelihoods of its workers on the line. Competent leaders don't just manage the pandemic. It's a delicate balancing act requiring intelligent and measured decision-making. Decision-making needs to be focused on problem areas so that Australian lives and jobs are protected. Premier Andrews failed to focus on the importance of problem areas when quarantining Australians from overseas in a hotel in Melbourne, and, sadly, poor management and poor leadership has cost Victoria a great deal. The number of lives that have been lost is now, tragically, documented daily. The lack of measured focus has cost Victorians a great deal.

In fact today I have been contacted by the Restaurants and Catering Industry Association, incredibly concerned about the restrictions that the Victorian government is seeking to impose on businesses there and the discussion around allowing only outdoor dining. Premier Andrews, come on! It's Melbourne. You don't quite have the harbour of Sydney or the fabulous weather. Who's going to want to sit outside? You are destroying business, Premier Andrews, and you need to apologise to Victorians for the way that you have handled this. There is a word called 'sorry' you might want to use at some point.

Labor are destroying jobs in the country. They are mishandling the health crisis in the states, and they should not be suggesting that this government is failing to protect Australians. Caring about Australians should come first. Australian businesses and jobs have taken absolute precedence under our incredibly competent leaders, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. Both of them are doing their utmost to rebuild our economy while working in tandem with our incredibly competent and steady Minister for Health, Greg Hunt, as he works to bring COVID patient numbers under control and to save Australian lives. Thank God for their leadership to counteract the incompetence of Labor's state performers, who are now directly contributing to the decline— (Time expired)

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

Senator Chisholm proposes that we discuss the government's failure on jobs and economic recovery. I'm not sure this government has actually failed given these unprecedented times. Certainly there have been mistakes and missteps, but I don't believe we can lay the blame for this recession solely at the feet of this government. No country affected by COVID-19 has escaped recession, but Australia has done comparatively well, outperforming most other developed countries in the last quarter. Nonetheless, we are in recession, and state and federal governments must work together rather than attack each other, which is a very commonplace activity, particularly in recent weeks.

The path back to growth starts with reopening domestic borders and keeping them open, and many speakers have already said exactly the same thing. I accept that the lockdowns were necessary in the early stages. In fact, they were critical in the early stages to ensure the pandemic was not going to spread to the extent that it did in other countries. But, as cases decline, state governments need to unlock their economies. They need to let businesses operate and let them serve customers, hire staff and scale up their operations. To get back to growth, we need to mobilise our population. We need to get people out of their homes and doing the ordinary—going for coffee, taking holidays, visiting local shops and regaining the confidence to spend the money they have been frightened into hoarding. Once that happens, we will have a clearer view of the economy. We will be able to see which industries are in trouble and where support may be appropriate. So I call on all states to open up so we can rebuild the economy and our collective resilience.

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

This year has been tough—tough for those who have lost their jobs, tough for the businesses that have closed and tough for our essential workers. This government is not delivering for those who are doing it tough. It is too focused on the press releases and it is not focused on the details. We need to get this recovery right, a recovery that focuses on rebuilding good, secure jobs and a recovery that works for all Australians. We need the plan for this recovery right now. Why right now? Because a million Australians are unemployed, 1.5 million Australians can't find enough work and another 400,000 Australians are predicted to lose their jobs by Christmas. That is a lot of people relying on this government, the Morrison government, to deliver a plan for jobs now.

Let's talk about today. Today the national accounts have recorded Australia's biggest ever fall in GDP, and we are in the worst recession in almost 100 years, a recession that will be deeper and longer if the government decides to leave people behind. What is the Prime Minister's plan for Australians who've lost their jobs, who fear losing their jobs, who are leaving school in just a few months time and are looking to this government for some hope for their future? Is it a plan to boost manufacturing? No. Is it a plan for big, nation-building infrastructure? No. Is it a plan to create more-secure jobs? No. It's a plan to cut people's incomes and support—a plan to cut JobKeeper and JobSeeker while people are still struggling and while they are looking for some hope from this government.

Australia is in the worst recession since the Great Depression, but this still isn't enough for the government to deliver a jobs plan. Australians need the government's help to get back on their feet. They need a plan for jobs, not a plan to cut their income. We've all heard the stories: a small factory employer who had 200 applications for one job in 48 hours. We've seen the stats: there are at least 13 job hunters per job vacancy right now. But earlier this week the government insisted that people need to re-engage with the workforce. You can only re-engage with the workforce when there are jobs there to re-engage with.

The Prime Minister needs to stop with the slogans and deliver a real plan—a plan that delivers what this government promises. He is pretty big on announcements—I'll give him that—but he is small when it comes to delivery. This government has promised $314 billion in support to Australians—sounds good, right? But the government has delivered a quarter of this. How about their plan to support small business, which promised $40 billion? That also sounds pretty good. How much of that has been delivered? Do you want to take a guess? It's five per cent. What is the government waiting for? We are in the worst recession in 100 years. We have a million people unemployed and 1.5 million people underemployed. What are you waiting for? Now would be a good time to deliver what you've promised. Now would be the right time to make good on the string of announcements that you've put forward, because these failures to deliver are costing jobs now.

Let me say—because it seems that you on the government benches need to hear it—a real jobs plan does not include bashing the Victorian Premier, Dan Andrews, into easing restrictions too early. Victorians see straight through this. They're doing it really tough right now but they know—we know—that the current restrictions are what's needed to keep the COVID numbers down. We don't want it to be for nothing. So beating up on the Victorian Premier to open up despite the health advice is not a jobs plan. It's a distraction. You know it's a distraction, and you know that it is a dangerous distraction. I'll tell you what Victorians actually want. They want a real plan from the Morrison government for jobs. That's what they want. They want backup and support from the Morrison government.

So here are some ideas. How about rebuilding and revitalising Australian manufacturing? How about getting started on some big, transformative infrastructure projects that will improve people's lives and deliver jobs? How about reversing the decline in job security that you have presided over for the last seven years of your government? We have had seven years of insecure work under this government. There was no plan from you prior to the pandemic, let alone now, to rebuild secure jobs in this country. There was no plan to get wages moving even prior to the pandemic.

The pandemic has shown that it's too often our most essential workers who are in the most insecure work—and we've relied on them in this pandemic to get us through. They need much more than our thanks; they need to see change. Today is Early Childhood Educators' Day, and we need to celebrate the amazing work that they've done. These essential workers have been there for families throughout this crisis. But the government hasn't been there for them. They cut them off JobKeeper three days before they said they wouldn't be cutting anyone off JobKeeper. Early childhood educators are the people you decided to cut off JobKeeper, and then you did nothing to secure their jobs during Victoria's stage 4 lockdown. One Victorian educator, Kerrie, put it best. Referring to the Prime Minister, she said: 'He treats us with contempt and shows no respect.' I know that many aged-care workers feel the same way. They've faced appalling conditions and their calls have been ignored.

David Van (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Walsh for her contribution. For once in this sitting fortnight—once—a Labor senator has actually mentioned the name Dan Andrews, the Premier of Victoria. Why have they been hiding from mentioning this up until now? I can tell you why: 19,000 cases of COVID and 500-odd deaths in Victoria. Premier Dan Andrews has failed Victorians and crushed the economy. You ask: how did he do this? I know Senator Ayres is very keen to learn all about this, because his great state, New South Wales—also Senator Keneally's state—has managed to avoid this. It did this—

Kristina Keneally (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Acting Deputy President, I would just draw to your attention that it is not appropriate under the standing orders to refer to senators who are in or out of the chamber in your remarks.

David Van (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I happily withdraw.

Kristina Keneally (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Van.

David Van (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There's no need to mention my good friends across the chamber, other than to say that they've been absolutely silent on the devastation that Premier Andrews has wrought in Victoria. How did he do it? He failed to lock down quarantine. When you have a pandemic, there are four things you can do. You can keep it out of your community, and you do that through quarantine. You can make sure that if it's in the community you can test for it and trace it. He's failed to do that. You can lock it down. Now, that's the one trick that he's found—the one-trick pony, Premier Andrews. That's all he's been able to do: lock down Victoria and crush jobs. Every day I get phone calls from businesses that have lost their livelihoods, that managed to get through stage 3, nearly six months of lockdown, and then stage 4 came along. We're at five weeks of stage 4 now, with a week to go, with still no plan to get Victoria out of it.

You guys are carrying on about a plan. Well, what about a plan to get Victoria going and start jobs again—to get those restaurants open, to get coffees going again, to get retail businesses open again? We hear nothing of that. This government believes in supporting business. We believe in building Australia's capability for the future. This government believes in removing red tape so that businesses, especially those small businesses that have been crushed by Premier Andrews in the state of Victoria, can grow and create jobs.

You ask about our plans. Well, our $300 billion of economic support package has kept this economy alive. When you compare it with all the economies across the world, ours comes out as one of the best: JobKeeper and JobSeeker, over $118 billion; cashflow support for small business, $32 billion; skills and apprenticeship programs, $2.8 billion; and infrastructure building, including $680 million for HomeBuilder grants. So there is plenty in there. Looking back to my first week in parliament, we delivered $167 billion in tax cuts. We've seen how that's supported business. Where were Labor on those? They finally came over to this side to vote for it, after being dragged there kicking and screaming. This shows that we're moving ahead with building a stronger Australia. This is the biggest investment in emergency economic relief by any Australian government and represents approximately 15 per cent of Australia's GDP. Even today in this place the government is trying to move legislation to ensure that big business follows government's lead in paying suppliers on time or paying interest if they don't.

Unlike Labor's past, with their failed and deadly pink batts scheme and their rorted school hall spending, this government is focusing on what will build more jobs and a more-prosperous Australia. Unlike Labor's past, the coalition is committed to making the lives of small businesses easier, because we understand that they are the lifeblood of the economy. Labor occasionally discovers that small business exists, when it's politically expedient to do so, but at the last election Labor did not offer small businesses any policies to access more finance—nothing about cutting red tape, improving payment times or reducing taxes. In fact, the only thing Labor offered small business at the election were more taxes, more costs—and less business.

Rex Patrick (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this matter of public importance relating to jobs and economic recovery. Most people in this chamber will know me as someone who is quite expert at getting access to documents that the government doesn't really want us to see. So I'm going to have to call Senator Chisholm out and say that he's wrong that the government doesn't a plan, because I've managed to get hold of it, and I have it here. It's even got a plan B. There's nothing written on it—but, nonetheless, that's their plan! But, seriously, I think the government has done a reasonable job working its way through COVID. I'm not going to take anything away from the fact that there are mistakes and there are areas where we can do better. But that's a management function; it's not a leadership function.

We do need a plan laid out that basically tells us how the government intends to move forward over the next five to 10 years, because that's what it's going to take to recover from what's happened to us. Senator Van stood up and gave examples of spending money. Anyone can spend money. It's much harder to spend money wisely and in a targeted manner that seeks to do the very thing that Senator Chisholm suggests in this MPI—that is, to have a plan to create a number of jobs. I'd like to see something come out that says: 'We are going to direct government money locally for local economic benefit.' We should be using our procurement budget. We should be assisting companies with R&D so they can generate IP, not just to build things here but also to export. We should be building up our manufacturing base, not just for jobs but also for resilience—because that is something that we've learned out of COVID: that we fell short in that area. We also need to be doing value-add, not just exporting our rocks. There's multinational tax avoidance—another way to get money into this country. There are lots of things we can do. Please, put out the plan, a coherent plan, so we can see what you're going to do.

Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government don't care about workers. They don't care about the economy. They don't care about protecting the planet for future generations. Their vision for the future is one of low wages, of job insecurity, and of profits over people. They want to use the COVID-19 crisis to enrich their corporate donors and fight culture wars, and not much else. Rather than creating the jobs of the future, they are pushing a so-called 'gas-fired recovery'—a totally backwards idea, brought to you by the government's mates in the gas industry. This will supercharge carbon emissions and worsen the climate crisis. It will subsidise projects that decimate nature, Aboriginal heritage sites and farmland. Expanding the fossil fuel industry won't create the jobs we need to build a better world.

If you lot need some help coming up with ideas to create decent, meaningful, well-paid jobs, the Greens can help. Our Invest to Recover package will deliver around one million jobs, look after the wellbeing of everyone in the community and our environment, and set us up for a fair, sustainable future. These jobs will be about building new, sustainable, social homes, slashing public-housing waiting lists, easing pressure on renters and improving housing affordability. As an engineer I know that we can revive Australian manufacturing and chart a course to becoming a renewables powerhouse. We could create a caring economy and a creative society. The pandemic has knocked us sideways, for sure, but it has also opened up a window to imagine and build a world that is better, that is fairer and that is more equal. Let's not waste this chance.

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

[by video link] As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I agree that the federal government is not serving the people in managing COVID-19. Neither is the Queensland Labor government. Solid plans require data as their basis. A core issue in Australian politics at federal and state government level is government fear of using data. Having been in business and responsible for the safety, lives and livelihoods of hundreds of people working in hostile and hazardous underground environments, I always got the data—objective data, accurate data, reliable data. People's lives and livelihoods deserve nothing less.

When data is missing, governments rely on taking care of donors, rely on opinions and aim for emotional marketing slogans and headlines. They rely on fooling people, not serving people. Take, for example, energy and climate policy. Climate tossed the last six Prime Ministers. Climate is splitting Labor. Real Labor MPs like Senators Gallacher, Sterle and Farrell are trying to protect blue-collar workers from the likes of new Labor's Mark Butler, Tanya Plibersek, Anthony Albanese, Senators McAllister and Watt, who are hell-bent on virtue-signalling and stopping leakage of votes to the Greens while forsaking workers.

John Howard recently admitted the Liberal Party has descended into tribalism. Would-be Greens like Trent Zimmerman and his fellow socialists—who Bronwyn Bishop said last year grew into a large group under Malcolm Turnbull—are battling true Liberals like Craig Kelly, Senators Rennick, Fierravanti-Wells and Abetz. Then we have the split-personality, the Nationals, like Barnaby Joyce and Senator Canavan, known to be sceptical on climate yet, when in cabinet, spruiking that we need to cut carbon dioxide. Prime Minister Turnbull showered $400 million on wind turbines in New England to get Mr Joyce elected in 2016.

That's why Liberal, Labor and Nationals governments failed to make a coherent plan on any issue. They need to get back to solid data and aim to serve the people.

Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for the discussion has expired.