Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Treasurer, Dr Chalmers, I table a ministerial statement on the economy, and I seek leave to make a short statement in relation to the document.

Leave granted.

I am tabling the Treasurer's ministerial statement on the economy, which the Treasurer presented in the House of Representatives today. As the Treasurer said, Australians know that this government has changed hands at a time of instability, uncertainty and volatility around the world and at home. We want to be upfront with the Australian people about the international factors that buffet us and the domestic, economic and budget pressures that we are working through. We also know that Australians are already experiencing the consequences of these circumstances every day. We recognise that Australian families are under pressure. You see it when you go to the shops, when you fill up at the bowser or when your bills arrive.

The Liberals and the Nationals gave this country a wasted decade. Instead of investing in the Australian people, they invested in waste and rorts, missed opportunities and messed-up priorities, and fixing that mess is going to take time. But despite all these challenges we know this is also a period of great opportunity for Australia. We are already at work on our main task to build a stronger and more resilient economy. It's an economy that will be powered by cheaper, cleaner, more reliable energy and with Australians workers that have the right skills in secure jobs with decent wages that grow strongly and sustainably, and this is our chance to build a better future for all Australians.

As the Treasurer outlined in his statement, the Australian economy is growing but so are the challenges. Some are homegrown; some come from around the world, and to that extent Australia is not alone. The global picture is complex, and the outlook is confronting. The International Monetary Fund this week significantly downgraded the outlook for global growth in both 2022 and 2023. China's strict COVID-containment measures have had a substantial impact on their output and have made existing supply chain disruptions more severe. Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine has undermined energy and food security and increased global prices.

In his statement, the Treasurer outlined new economic forecasts from the Treasury. These forecasts better reflect the economic circumstances, such as higher inflation and slowing global growth, that our government is dealing with. The Treasurer announced these forecasts well ahead of the October budget because, as a government, we consider that Australians deserve to know where our country is positioned.

There are couple of issues in the Treasurer's speech that I want to draw attention to, particularly around inflation and around the budget. While the Australian economy is outperforming much of the world, high inflation is impacting on Australian living standards in an environment where workers are not getting the wage rises to match the price rises. In the pre-election forecast, inflation was expected to peak at 4¼ per cent. It's now 6.1 per cent through the year to June and is now forecast to peak at 7¾ per cent in the December quarter this year. As the Treasurer has said, the current expectation is that inflation will get worse this year, moderate next year and normalise the year after. Higher interest rates combined with the global slowdown will impact on economic growth here in Australia. The revised economic outcomes and forecasts are expected to cut half a percentage point from growth for the last financial year, this financial year and the next financial year. So, instead of 4¼ per cent growth in real GDP last year, as estimated before the election, it is expected to be 3¾ per cent in 2021-72. Instead of 3½ per cent this year, it has been revised to three per cent, and next year, instead of 2½ per cent growth, we are looking at two per cent. It's largely driven by weaker consumption on the back of higher inflation and interest rates.

So, yes, the economy is growing, but there are challenges ahead. We have been upfront about those challenges that we have inherited, and that includes the trillion dollars of debt left by the previous government. We know that the government's last ditch re-election budget is chock-full of waste and rorts, with a series of expiring measures. We also know that there are long-term demographic challenges that come with critical and necessary spending.

I want to make a comment on the final budget outcome for 2021-22, which will be published soon. It's likely to show a dramatically better than expected outcome for a few reasons. Temporary factors like supply chain disruptions, capacity constraints and extreme weather delayed some spending, while low unemployment and volatile commodity prices boosted revenue. These are temporary factors, and we know that the short-, medium- and longer term pressures on the budget remain and are more pronounced.

You will see a full set of fiscal forecasts in the October budget, but the additional impacts of COVID related expenditure are already costing the budget an extra $1.6 billion this year. We also expect government payments to be around $30 billion higher over the forward estimates than forecast pre election because of issues like inflation and wage expectations. We also have a growing debt burden, left by the former government. It's at the highest level as a share of the economy since the aftermath of the Second World War, with deficits that stretch beyond a decade. That debt burden is growing heavier due to the impact of higher interest rates on repayments. Let us not forget that the former government was a government that, even before the pandemic, had more than doubled gross debt.

We want our budget in October to be about high-quality investments in the right priorities. We are already working on our audit of waste and rorts. The Treasurer and the Minister for Finance are going through the budget, line by line, to ensure that our spending is about building value. The budget will be an opportunity to deliver the commitments that the Australian people voted for in May. While we recognise that our choices are constrained by the fiscal situation, we have an economic plan to lift the speed limit on the economy. It is a plan with three elements. The first is to address the cost-of-living pressures, like cutting childcare costs and the costs of medicines on the PBS by up to $12.50 per script. The second is to grow wages over time. We have already demonstrated our commitment to successfully arguing for a decent pay rise for the lowest paid. The third is to strengthen supply chains and deal with the supply side of the inflation challenge, like investing in cleaner, cheaper and more reliable energy and addressing skills and labour shortages.

The economic statement today paints a challenging and confronting picture, but, as the Treasurer has said, the growing pressures on the economy and the country don't make our election commitments less important; they make them far more crucial. This is our opportunity. It is our opportunity to build a better future for our country and for future generations.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like the minister, I seek leave to make a short statement on the ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

I thank the Senate. This economic statement, or so-called economic statement, tabled and delivered by the Treasurer in the other place, is a demonstration that this is a government that has no plan. It's a government big on promises and big on platitudes, that, as the Treasurer himself acknowledged, sought to 'paint a picture' today of those promises and platitudes. But it has no plan. It's a government that, through the election campaign, talked a big game. Through the election campaign, it promised that wages would be higher, growth would be higher and interest rates would be lower—that all of these things would magically materialise if we just had a Labor government. Nine weeks ago they were promising that they had all of the answers and all of the solutions.

But what's been delivered in today's statement? It's an economic statement that lays the foundation for the government to break all of those promises—to not deliver upon the commitments and the promises that they made. Throughout the statement, the Treasurer says that it's 'complex'; it's 'difficult'; there are 'pressures' and 'problems'; 'it will take time' and there are 'challenges'; they're all the Treasurer's words. He offers no solutions in the statement, no plan and no announcements—just a series of complaints that it's tough.

Well, yes. Government is tough. We were upfront, through the election campaign, that there were real challenges for Australia that were faced as a result of a range of different global circumstances.

But Mr Chalmers, Mr Albanese and those on the other side endlessly stated that they had, apparently, the answers to the challenges. Well, where are they? Where are those answers when you look at today's statement? It offers nothing other than a downgrading of those promises. Instead of wages being higher, as the Labor Party promised going into the election, Mr Chalmers delivered a statement today showing real wages would be lower. Instead of growth being higher—as Labor endlessly said and as Mr Chalmers went into the election indicating—now there's a statement showing that growth will be lower. And, of course, instead of interest rates being lower, as Labor emphasised throughout the election, they now acknowledge that interest rates will be higher.

Labor said during the election that the cost of living was the biggest issue. One of the areas where they promised a solution was an explicit promise by the Prime Minister to take $275 off household electricity bills. And now? There's no commitment to that promise anymore. When asked directly, the government fudges its way around the $275 commitment. They fudge; they dodge; they refuse to repeat that. Clearly they don't expect there will be any relief from electricity prices. The $275 promise was designed to go on election material, not to be delivered in government.

On wages, the government now says they have to wait some years. It's not what they were saying during the election campaign when they were promising real wages growth all the time under a Labor government. Now they say it will take years.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Labor Party, in opposition, said that unemployment would be the key measure of the coalition government's success in managing the economic impacts of that global health crisis. And we delivered on that unemployment benchmark—something foreign, it seems, to this government. Under our government, unemployment hit a near-50-year low: 3.9 per cent when we left office. The Labor Party had set a benchmark, and we well and truly met and exceeded that benchmark in terms of creating jobs and driving down unemployment, laying the foundation for the most recent 3½ per cent unemployment rate recorded.

But what's the commitment from the government now? Well, today's statement shows they expect unemployment to deteriorate: they expect unemployment to go back up—just as they seem to expect that power prices will be higher, not lower; growth will be lower, not higher; and interest rates will be higher, not lower. This is a government that clearly has come to office on a litany of vague promises and aspirations. But now the Treasurer is starting to try to lay the foundation for a budget that he will hand down in a couple of months time, where he's indicating that he expects things to be difficult. And governing is difficult, as we have always acknowledged, but this government needs to try to live up to the rhetoric that it laid out in the election campaign.

This government will be held to account for what they've said about wages, what they've said about interest rates, what they've said about questions like spending, because only one party went to the election campaign with savings that exceeded their spending promises—the Liberal and National parties. The Labor Party went into the election campaign promising more spending and much more that they didn't account for. Let's see, in future budgets, when the Labor Party says that they want to tackle debt and deficit, whether that spending comes down or goes up, because if they are to deliver on their promises then it's only going one way, and that's going to be up, and that's going to mean a higher deficit and higher debts in the future.

There was, of course, one acknowledgement through the Treasurer's comments today of the previous government's work—that is, that the final budget outcome for 2021-22 will be dramatically better than expected. That's an admission of the coalition's budget management, an admission that our conservative economic forecasts in our budgets and our strong plans for growth have delivered outcomes exceeding expectations: unemployment lower than we had forecast; growth delivered through our term in government exceeding, usually, the budget forecasts in recent years; and a budget outcome much stronger than had been forecast. That's what a good government does. This government, based on today's statement, leaves little hope of it emulating such outcomes.

Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Congratulations, Acting Deputy President Sterle, on your swearing in today. It's good to see you back in this place. I just want to take this opportunity to make a couple of remarks as well—

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm sorry, Senator Ciccone.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was making my remarks by leave, Acting Deputy President.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry, Senator Birmingham, I was too busy taking all the accolades. It's not very often people speak nicely to people around here, and I was soaking it up. Sorry, you need to seek leave—

Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry, I'm moving to take note of the ministerial—

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESI DENT: My apologies.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the ministerial statement.

Today we heard a very grim picture of the economy from the Treasurer, particularly when it comes to the very point around inflation. That 6.1 per cent inflation figure revealed yesterday was not unexpected, but that doesn't make it any easier for Australian families who are already struggling with the costs of living at the moment and the soaring costs of living, not just in the last couple of months since we've been in government but for the last couple of years under the coalition government. If we do not combat inflation, if we don't take it seriously and we continue to undermine the living standards and the pay and conditions of Australian workers, there will be further economic pain for many, many families. That's why we are seeing central banks all around the world raising interest rates, using the powers at their disposal to take action on inflation. But this is tough for all Australian families—increasing mortgage repayments and increasing the cost of servicing debt more broadly. And every extra dollar that Australian families have to find to service their mortgage is a dollar that they can't use to buy the essentials and pay the bills, the essentials and the bills that are getting more and more expensive every day.

This is the insidious spiral of inflation. The inflation that makes these rates increases necessary has been exacerbated by the decade-long lack of investment in our skills and training in our TAFEs and in our universities. Making things here in this country, our domestic manufacturing sector, has been decimated—all thanks to the previous coalition government, after the last nine-and-a-bit years. They failed on skills, energy and ensuring that we had a very strong sovereign capability when it came to manufacturing.

The Treasurer provided a look under the hood of the Australian economy, and it was sobering. There are a number of international factors that are impacting Australia's economy. China's response to its COVID outbreaks has significantly constrained the productivity capacity of its economy, putting further pressure on an already fragile supply chain around the world. Russia's unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine has also undermined energy and food security and put upward pressure on the price of essential goods. We've seen global economic forecasts cut this week, and it's expected that the revised domestic forecast will cut half a per cent from growth for the last financial year, this financial year and the one after. This is a result of high interest rates combined with the global economic slowdown. And with the coalition leaving a trillion dollars of debt, these high interest rates are having a significant impact on the government's balance sheet. The Treasurer has stated that interest rate repayments on the coalition's debt will be the single largest expense of the government—more expensive than Medicare, more expensive than the NDIS, more expensive than education.

There is no doubt that these are significant challenges. But I appreciate that we have a Treasurer, and indeed a government, that is being upfront with the Australian people. Jim Chalmers didn't stand up and say, 'Everything is rosy, it's all great and no-one should worry.' This is in stark contrast to the approach that we saw under the previous administration, who, just a couple of months ago, were on the campaign trail bragging about their economic management ability, suggesting that Australians should be grateful that they had a coalition government. Well, unfortunately, this doesn't match up with the reality of our Australian economy. That's been all just spin—short-term slogans designed for the re-election of a government that was tired. Fortunately, for members on this side of the Senate, Australians saw right through the Liberal and National parties.

The budget that the Albanese Labor government has inherited was and seems to be bursting with some waste and rorts—and we are intent on cleaning that up—hidden mismanagement and low-quality spending, and, again, a trillion dollars of debt with not enough to show for it. Government spending should be measured against how effectively it supports the services and the projects that Australians rely on, not measured against how many votes it can win at the next election. The times that we live in are tough, and each extra dollar that government spends is becoming a lot more expensive as interest rates rise. We simply cannot afford the political ideologue of the previous government and their wastes and their rorts.

I want to draw the Senate's attention to the Treasurer's comments on wages. There have been some commentators—and politicians, for that matter—who have suggested that rising wages are somehow a major contributor to inflation and that the primary focus of the federal government should be on constraining wage growth. This suggestion does not stand up to scrutiny, in my opinion. We are experiencing soaring inflation despite real wage growth averaging just 0.1 per cent for the past decade. That was largely due to the previous government's policy of deliberately keeping wage growth low. This is not the policy of this government, of the Albanese Labor government, and we saw that when we first came in. One of the very first acts of Prime Minister Albanese was to ensure that the government put a submission to the Fair Work Commission asking that those on the lowest wages in this country get a pay rise. It is more urgent than ever that we get wages moving again so that working families have the ability to keep up with inflating prices of essential goods and services—prices that are determined by dozens of different economic factors, not just wages.

We should not indulge those who want to continue constraining wages and making it tough for workers to get ahead, let alone keep up with the soaring cost of living. This is a shallow idea that has been pushed by those who want to see the economic policies of the previous government continue. This is not what Labor stands for: we are tackling these challenges because Australian families need a government that is on their side. They do not need more of the awful economic management that we have seen in the past decade.

It's important to note that our government does not see the tough economic times ahead as a cause for delaying or scrapping our election commitments. In fact, the economic plan that we took to the election is now required more urgently than ever. We must invest in our childcare sector, ensuring that there is cheaper child care, ensuring that there are people at the front line who can provide that essential service—predominantly for women, so they can also get back into the workforce and add to our productivity in this economy. We must bring down the cost of medicines to provide the cost-of-living relief that so many pensioners and seniors have been calling for, for some time. We must take the speed limits off our economy by investing more in accessible TAFE and our universities: two great areas of government that we should put more money into, not less, investing in our children, in our students and in the future leaders of this country.

We also have to invest in cleaner and cheaper energy, and in growing advanced manufacturing. That's been the crucial part, or the missing link, I think, in this place for some time. I've spoken at length about how we need to invest more in our manufacturing sector, not relying on overseas products but making much of that here in this country. And we must be responsible in how we go about repairing our budget, by tackling the coalition's mismanagement, their waste and their rorts but also the missed opportunities. There were many missed opportunities over the 9½ years, and this work is already underway through our audit of waste and rorts.

There are many reasons to be optimistic, and the Treasurer also outlined them today. Australians have a government that is on their side, that backs them. To be honest, we'll be ensuring that we get the best value for money when it comes to our budget that we'll hand down later this year in October. We are committed to working not just with them but for them to build a better future. The Treasurer noted that the character of the Australian people is our greatest resource: our ability to come together to confront those challenges and overcome them. So Australians should be confident that, while there are tough times ahead, we will get through them. (Time expired)

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

Mr Acting Deputy President Sterle, I also offer my congratulations on your swearing-in as a senator today. This place would not be the same for your absence! You add a great deal to it in every way.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you.

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

I'm perplexed: Senator Ciccone, who I have a very high regard for, talked about a concern for costs. I'll quote him: he said, 'Each extra dollar government spends is becoming more expensive.' And I agree—I agree: each extra dollar that government spends is becoming more expensive. So I'm perplexed as to why it is, at the start of this government, that it's taking action to first gut the powers of the Australian Building and Construction Commission and then to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission, which is the cop on the beat of our construction sites across this country. If you want to save costs, if you want to maximise every single dollar of government infrastructure spending to build our hospitals, to build our schools and to build our roads, you need a cop on the beat in terms of our construction sites.

I want to quote a release put out by the Australian Industry Group this week. The title is, 'Gutting of Building Code'—and that is what the industrial relations minister is proposing to do—'a backwards step for safety and the fight against bullying & intimidation.' And I quote Innes Willox, the chief executive of national employer association Australian Industry Group. These are his words not mine. He said:

It is a backwards step for the fight against bullying and intimidation and will add costs—

the costs which, apparently, the government's so concerned about—

and delays to vital community infrastructure—

the community infrastructure which is to be provided for the people of this country—

such as roads, hospitals and schools.

That's what's being proposed. And the issue we're dealing with is the unlawful activity of the CFMMEU on our construction sites.

Mr Acting Deputy President Sterle, I know you were a proud member, and no doubt still are, of a trade union in this country. My father was a member of a trade union. My mother was a member of a trade union. My sister was a member of a trade union. I have great respect for Senator Walsh, sitting opposite, who was a senior official of United Voice union. I have a great respect for many members sitting opposite who have held senior positions in the Australian labour movement. But I do not have respect for the lawless activity undertaken by the CFMMEU on construction sites in this country, and I am baffled as to why the Australian Labor Party wants to protect the construction division of the CFMMEU, absolutely baffled.

I'm going to refer to a number of very confronting incidents that the CFMMEU has engaged with on construction sites. Bear in mind, the Australian government, the Labor government, is saying, 'We don't need a cop on the beat,' on our construction sites. Just listen to this roll call of shame, of the conduct of the CFMMEU on our construction sites, and you be the judge. Let all those listening be the judge as to whether or not there's an issue, in terms of the unlawful behaviour of the CFMMEU. Some of these examples are confronting. As someone who's dealt in a previous life with trade unionists, the trade union movement, I don't think they're representative of 99 per cent of the trade union movement. The issue is we've got a problem, in this country, with the construction division of the CFMMEU.

Let me give you some examples. A CFMMEU official was jailed for assault. He had once told a female inspector—this is a woman working on our construction sites. I think we should be promoting our construction sites as a place for women to work. This is what he said to that lady, someone's wife, someone's daughter, someone's niece. He said she was an '—expletive, expletive—' asking her if she had brought kneepads, as 'You are going to be—expletive, expletive, expletive—dogs all day.' We don't have a problem in our construction work sites with the CFMMEU?

Here is another example. The Courier Mail, a paper in my state, revealed that a CFMMEU official allegedly barked like a dog at a female health and safety consultant on a Gold Coast construction site and said, 'Go on, off you go you—expletive—dog—expletive. Go get your police.' He allegedly called her an '—expletive—dog—expletive—' twice more that day. We don't have a problem on our constructive sites? We don't have a problem with the CFMMEU?

You see, the Australian Labor Party—in the minister's announcement, when he said he was going to gut the ABCC of its watchdog powers, with respect to our construction sites, he couldn't even bear to mention the CFMMEU. He didn't even mention their names. They are ashamed of the CFMMEU. Yet officials of the CFMMEU sit around their national executive table and donate millions and millions and millions of dollars to those sitting opposite and their political causes.

I'll give you another example. It just gets worse—and I've got pages of this stuff. It is appalling. In another visit, a female inspector was called an '—expletive, expletive—' and 'a dog' by union officials while she was doing her job. How's this one? A CFMMEU delegate was accused of harassing the daughter of a builder—so not just the person on the construction site, their family!

I've actually spoken to people working in construction sites who've had to live with the stress created by CFMMEU construction officials trespassing and unlawfully invading construction sites and taking photographs of their cars' plates—the number plates on their personal vehicles. That's the sort of thing the CFMMEU construction division does, and you're defending them. It's disgraceful. You can't even mention their name—in this case, the builder's daughter.

You have heard our Prime Minister say: 'It's all trivial. It's all about the stickers and flags.' No, it's not. It's about someone's daughter, it's about someone's wife, it's about someone's niece. This is what happened to her. The CFMMEU picketers were accused of harassing the daughter of the builder when she entered the site in her car by commenting on her breasts and bottom and making an 'ooh' sounded her. They allegedly called her a daddy's girl, a blonde bimbo, et cetera. Here's another case: a CFMMEU official made three phone calls late at night to a female inspector's mobile phone. The last call logged at 11.23 pm. An anonymous flyer was then circulated, referring to the woman as a dog who wanted to be a pole dancer. These are the cases—example after example after example.

What does our High Court say about the CFMMEU construction division? What does our High Court say? This judgement was released on 13 April 2022. Our High Court—not a politician; our High Court—was unanimous in a judgement. This is what our High Court said about the CFMMEU construction division:

… the Full Court's approach in this case is apt to undermine the primacy of deterrence as the objective of the civil penalty regime in the Act is amply demonstrated once regard is had to the failure of previous penalties to have any deterrent effect on the CFMMEU's repeated contraventions of s 349(1) of the Act. The … CFMMEU has continued to breach s 349(1), steadfastly resistant to previous attempts to enforce compliance by civil penalties fixed at less than the permitted maximum, is a compelling indication that the penalties previously imposed have not been taken seriously because they were insufficient to outweigh the benefits flowing unlawfully to the contravenor from adherence to the "no ticket, no start" policy.

That is, the policy that they intimidate people off construction sites unless they are a member of the CFMMEU. Don't we believe in freedom of association in this country? This is what the High Court says:

To the contrary, the CFMMEU's continuing defiance of s 349(1) indicates that it regards the penalties previously imposed as an "acceptable cost of doing business".

Those opposite talk about cost. The CFMMEU regards breaching the laws of this land as a cost of doing business.

Why are you standing up and defending this lawless union which is a contaminant on our construction worksites? It baffles me. We will shine a bright light on the unlawful conduct of the CFMMEU, whose members sit on your national executive, every day until the next federal election.

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

I rise to take note of the ministerial statement on the economy delivered by the Treasurer earlier today. This is a time for us to be honest with the Australian people about the challenges ahead, and it's time for us to be honest about the opportunities that also lie ahead as we work together to meet those challenges head-on. Australians don't need us to tell them that times are tough. They don't need to track inflation figures to know that everything that they need in their daily lives is costing more—food, petrol, electricity. What they do need is to be part of a discussion with their government on the way forward, to have their voices heard, to know that the people that they put into this parliament will use every lever available to government to help them not just get through this period but do better into the future.

On the Labor team, on the government benches, that is exactly what we will do: listen, act and govern in the interest of everyday Australians. It's exactly what we have always done, because on this side of the chamber we bring the stories of the people who hold up our economy day in, day out. Right here, to the floor of this parliament, we bring into the policies that we create the stories and experiences of the essential workers of Australia who hold up this country. These are the people we're thinking of as we chart a path forward through difficult times because, as the Prime Minister says, we believe in an economy that works for people, and not the other way around. We know it's these Australians who have the least room to move when their wages don't go up but the price of everything else does. That is the reality too many Australians have experienced over the last nine years of the former government, and it is a reality which is hitting people hard right now.

Today the Treasurer outlined the pressures that are bearing down on all of us and most particularly on our lowest-paid workers, who have little buffer to protect them. I commend him for being honest with the Australian people, and I commend him for fronting up to the seriousness of these times, because, as he said today, problems don't solve themselves. A decade of inaction on the fundamentals of our economy—a wasted decade—by those on the other side has proven exactly that. Imagine if we were hitting these tough times today with an economy in the shape it should have been in, given we are one of the wealthiest countries in this world. Imagine if wages had not been flat for a decade. Imagine if those low wages had not been a deliberate design feature of their economy. Imagine if more people were secure in their jobs. Imagine if we had a stronger and more diversified economy. Imagine if that economy had a big strong manufacturing sector, making us less reliant on global supply chains. Imagine if the previous government had led a renewables revolution in this country and made us less vulnerable, rather than more vulnerable, to global shocks, less vulnerable to global gas prices and less vulnerable to skyrocketing global petrol prices. Imagine if they had invested in the skills which people need and which businesses are crying out for. Imagine if they had invested in social housing. Imagine if they had used their budgets to build this country up, instead of loading it down with a trillion dollars of debt with nothing to show for it. Just imagine!

Now it is up to us on the government benches to work hard and work fast to make the changes that should have started a decade ago. That is exactly what we will do, and it's exactly what we have already started doing. We have already started to get wages moving in this country for our most essential workers. The Prime Minister said during the election campaign that he supported a minimum wage pay rise that kept pace with inflation, so one of his first acts was to write to the Fair Work Commission to support that claim. The 5.2 per cent boost to the pay packets of our lowest-paid workers that resulted from that would just not have happened if Anthony Albanese had not been elected Prime Minister. But now, because Australians have voted for change, we can get to work and start bolstering our economy and repairing the damage that those on the other side have done. We can get to work and start implementing our plan to support the Australian people in better and more secure lives; to build resilience into our economy by powering that economy with cleaner, cheaper, more reliable energy; to support workers and businesses to have the right skills for today's jobs; to make more of what we need right here in Australia; and to offer more and different job opportunities to the next generation to strengthen and diversify our economy and to build our sovereign capacity to provide for ourselves.

We can now get to work to build a more resilient care economy too, recognising, as the former government refused to, that our care economy will be more efficient at caring for our children, our elderly and people with disabilities when those—mostly women—who perform that work are properly recognised. I spoke of essential workers who hold up our economy: the cleaners, the drivers, the hospo workers, the retail workers and so many more. Our care economy workers don't hold up only the economy; they hold up the sky for the people that they care for. When we properly value those workers, our society and our economy will be all the stronger for it.

I want to share with you just a few of the stories of essential workers I bring with me today to this parliament—the people I'm thinking about as we confront the challenges outlined by the Treasurer today. Sheree has worked in aged care for more than 20 years on insecure part-time contracts. She can't convince a real estate agent to give her a lease, she can't convince a bank to give her a home loan and sometimes she doesn't earn enough just to meet her own basic needs. She found herself living in temporary accommodation in a caravan park. She told me: 'As a low-income worker, I am not alone here. Where I live, most people are low-income, insecure workers.'

Mahali is a farm worker from my home state of Victoria, and she shared how she and her fellow workers are paid as little as $10 an hour to pick fruit, lettuce and herbs by contractors in this country. She and her co-workers are terrified of speaking out for fear of being reported to Immigration. And just this morning I met with Jenny and her two amazing children. Jenny is an NTEU member and an academic at Melbourne University. Despite working at the university for a number of years, Jenny is employed on a casual contract with no security of income. Her daughter suffers from epilepsy and her son from autism. She can't afford the medical appointments and education support that her children need. Jenny told me today, 'Sometimes I go without food just so my kids can eat.'

I ask you again to imagine if we had not wasted a decade not addressing the challenges that these people face. Imagine if the previous government had not led an economy based on low wages, on insecure jobs and on outright wage theft. As it stands today, we know that people like Sheree, Mahali and Jenny are making tough decisions in their own household budgets. As a government, we will have to as well, but we won't step back from the commitments we made to the Australian people to build a stronger economy that works for all. As the Treasurer said, we'll get on with the job, building an economy as resilient as the Australian people themselves. We'll get our economy moving and lift people up along with it. We'll invest in the people of this country. We'll invest in their potential, and we'll build a strong, more diverse and more resilient economy that Australians will be proud of.

Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Walsh is right: when Australian families sit down tonight at their kitchen tables, they will have to use their imagination, because Dr Chalmers, the member for Rankin, the new Labor Treasurer, has not presented them with a plan. As Australian families gather tonight to think about how they plan for rising levels of inflation in this country, guess what they do? They do it in the absence of knowing what the government's plan is.

It's been 10 weeks since the election, and we had an economic statement today which, by Labor's Speaker's own admission in the House of Representatives, was a political statement. It was not a ministerial statement and did not meet the requirements of the House of Representatives standing orders.

We need a plan in this country to deal with rising levels of inflation. We need a plan in this country to deal with productivity reform. We need a plan in this country to deal with cost-of-living pressures. We need a plan in this country that will address labour shortages. We need a plan in this country that will deal with our own domestic supply issues. There was no plan. A few days ago, Dr Chalmers said he wanted to use today's occasion to paint a picture. Well, this country does not need Dr Chalmers to be van Gogh. What this country needs is an architect who will build an economic plan.

The foundations that were left to Labor were strong: a historically low unemployment rate—Senator Ayres, are you laughing about the low level of unemployment in this country? I thought you were a union man. There is no plan. Australians gather tonight in their homes having no idea what comes next.

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

The time for the debate has expired.

Question agreed to.