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

Last week we saw real wages going backwards again. The CPI was up to three per cent and real wages under this government are only going up by 2.2 per cent. Costs are going up and petrol prices are going up under this government. Rents are going up and mortgages are going up. This is the longest period of stagnant wages in Australian history and COVID is not the problem. The government is the problem. It's the Morrison government that is the problem.

Where are we on unemployment? There were 46,000 Australian jobs lost last month and more than 330,000 jobs lost since July. The unemployment rate is up to 5.2 per cent and for young Australians it's 13 per cent. There were 1.4 million Australians stood down last month. These were casual jobs, labour hire jobs and workers stood down to zero hours—that's the Morrison government's economic management. Good economic managers—save me! The effective unemployment rate is at about 15 per cent.

This disastrous economic management has been a feature of this government for its whole eight long, moribund years of failure. And the government asks what the election is going to be about. Is it going to be about the Prime Minister's character? Well, bring it on! Let's have a discussion about the Prime Minister's character. Is it going to be about the Prime Minister's promises to deliver an integrity commission? Bring that discussion on! Bring it on! Is it going to be about an economy that's in the interests of ordinary Australians and Australian working families? Well, as Mr Chalmers said last week, we will have that debate every day of the week. As incomes fall and prices rise, the government doesn't have a leg to stand on and it's time we swept this government away.