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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Gallagher) to questions without notice asked by Senators Hume and Hughes today relating to wage growth and to energy policy.

This is an interesting situation we find ourselves in today, dealing with the cost of living and with real wages. It's interesting to note that at the end of the Howard government wages were increasing by 4.4 per cent a year and by the end of the Rudd-Gillard government they were down to 2.7 per cent a year. Arguably, the previous coalition government dropped a little bit, to 2.4 per cent, but it was nowhere near the same level of drop as what happened in the Rudd-Gillard era. I would like to note, however, that in the last nine years we have been wracked by a Senate that wouldn't pass bills and a bureaucracy that worked against us every time it got the chance, and of course we had to get through COVID, which was a very difficult time. And it didn't help when the RBA printed $300 billion and effectively fed that into the economy without any real investment in infrastructure.

It's interesting to note the difference between 2019, 2020 and 2009. When swine flu broke out in 2009, the coalition, the opposition of the day, didn't go and call for an immediate shutdown of the economy like Labor did when COVID broke out. That's really, really important, and, interestingly, it was well known that Nicola Roxon actually told the bureaucrats that we can't shut down, don't be silly. Yet we were forced to shut down and then the RBA went ahead—of course, it's an independent statutory authority, and for some reason people seem to think that we should outsource one of the most important economic levers to unelected officials—and printed $300 billion and thought they'd throw it out to the banks and then lower interest rates to 0.1 per cent. It's going to take a lot of winding back to deal with the inflation from those reckless actions that the RBA has undertaken, and unfortunately they've raised those interest rates. Good luck trying to raise real wages when you have inflation running at over six per cent under the Labor Party. It's not something I'd be getting too self-righteous about right here and right now.

The other thing we need to talk about is Labor's promise of reducing energy bills by $275. This is where the chickens have really come home to roost, because the woke brigade have been pursuing renewables at all costs, or what I like to call 'unreliables at all costs'—and it is at all costs, I might add—and billions and tens of billions of dollars have been sunk into the energy sector. And for what? What we've got is less reliability and higher power prices, and that's not surprising if you're going to go recklessly throwing science under the bus and engaging in junk science. It's junk science because, as everyone knows, heat's kinetic energy, the energy in motion, and the idea that it gets trapped is a complete oxymoron. If you step outside and look at a hot air balloon, when they turn up the gas, the hot air rises in outer space, negative 270 degrees. It’s called the entropy of a system always increases, the second law of thermodynamics. Anyone with a basic understanding of year 12 physics would know that. Anyway, I digress.

We need to go to why energy prices are increasing. It's very simple, because in the old days you had a coal fired power station—somewhere like Kogan Creek, which has 400 million tonnes of coal sitting underneath it or near to it—and you dig it up, put it into the coal fired power station and it goes straight through the transmission lines, including being interconnected to the southern states, and straight away it's in your houses or the factories where we desperately need cheap, reliable energy. But no, no, no, not with unreliables. With unreliables, what we've got to do is to wait for the sun to shine and the wind to blow, and we've got to get it to all these different stranded power stations around the country.

In order to join up these power stations, we've got to add transmission lines. The government opposite us want to spend $20 billion on building transmission lines to connect up all these new unreliable power stations, so that is a cost that isn't going to exist if you never relied on unreliables in the first place. But it doesn't stop right there, because then you have to build all these batteries to store the power for when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing. This stuff costs a lot of money. Lithium, for example, is a one per cent orebody. You have to mine 100 tonnes of ore to get one tonne of metal and then you're going to have to duck it through hundreds and thousands of litres of sulphuric acid. Heaven forbid if that ever leaches into the groundwater and gets out to our Great Barrier Reef. I know that the Greens are always talking about how they the Great Barrier Reef; well, I can tell you that that when we've got sulphuric acid going everywhere from the creation of these lithium batteries, we're going to have more problems there.

Then we have the whole problem of stability, so we have inertia control, and all those things are going to add to the costs. That's why power prices are going up, not to mention that there's a slight problem in Russia and Ukraine—I'll leave it to one side for the moment. But let me tell you this: Labor will never reduce power prices unless they back coal in this country. (Time expired.)

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

It's always remarkable that when the opposition want to come into this chamber, they ask questions about wage growth. This is an opposition that, whether it was under Abbott or Turnbull or, in fact, Morrison, did nothing to support working Australians. They did nothing to support an increase in the minimum wage. They had almost 10 years to do something for Australian workers and they failed at every single obstacle. Now, we have inherited a huge debt. We've also inherited a situation where this opposition, when they were in government, had no real plan for jobs. They had no plan at all when it came to reducing the cost of living, and all of a sudden, in the short period of time they've been in opposition, they want to come in here and lecture us about what we should be doing and what we haven't done in less than 12 weeks. I mean, realistically! I know you've learnt nothing at all from the election defeat and I know it will take you some time to get used to being in opposition, but we went to the election with a plan: a plan to grow jobs in this country and to increase wages for working Australians. We know and we understand the challenges that Australian families and Australians are facing when it comes to the cost of living. But, to do that, you need to lift productivity, you need to lift wages and you need to ensure that you have skills and opportunities. That's why we went to the election supporting TAFE: to ensure that we have the best, most highly-skilled workforce going forward. We've got a plan. That's the difference between us and those opposite.

Now, I know that it's difficult to face an election defeat, particularly when you've been in government for so long, but the reality is: the Australian people didn't buy your crap anymore.

They just didn't believe anything that you took to the election. No-one believed a word of what you've been saying for so long, because you have—

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hughes?

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A point of order: unparliamentary language was just used, I think, by Senator Polley. Perhaps she would like to withdraw.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Polley, the offer's there to withdraw if it caused offence. Otherwise, reflect on your language.

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

I'm more than happy to, if I did cause any offence. I didn't think that I did, but sometimes the truth hurts, I guess.

I'd like to continue in relation to that plan that our government has. The plan is to increase productivity. It's to support workers and ensure that we have the best trained and skilled workforce.

I'd just like to remind those opposite, as to the care sector in this country and aged-care workers: this government, for 10 long years, had the opportunity to increase the wages, the remuneration, and the skill base for aged-care workers in this country, but did nothing—nothing at all. In fact, people within the disability sector earn more money than those who are caring for some of the most vulnerable people. Now, I support the disability carers. But I also support aged-care workers and childcare workers and early childhood educators.

Now, we're a new government, but we took a plan to the people at the last election. Australians agreed with the agenda that we put forward and supported us. So, when it comes to energy prices and the questions again today about whether we're going to keep our election commitment: well, yes, we are, because we know how important it is to the Australian people that a government keeps its election commitments—unlike those opposite when they were in government.

But, when it comes to energy and renewable energy, we know the track record of the previous governments under Turnbull, Abbott and Morrison. They had no policy. They don't even believe in renewable energy. I come from a state where we have led the nation with our renewable energy, with our hydro. So what we, as a government, will do is: we will invest, and, as I said at the outset, we will keep to our election commitments. We gave a guarantee that we would do everything we could to reduce power prices, because they do have a huge impact on Australian families and businesses. So you can rely on us.

So, when you want to get up—as I'm sure the next speaker will—and try and rewrite history and blame the current government for all the woes in the community, I think what you will see over the next three years is a government that keeps to its commitments and will put Australian people and business ahead of those in opposition—

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Brockman.

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

Well! I too rise to take note of answers to questions today concerning real wage growth and the cost of electricity prices. We've heard from Senator Polley that the government has a plan to tackle inflation.

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is it a secret plan?

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

This reminds me, Senator Hughes—and I suspect that we've both watched this show, and I won't start commenting on people's age, but I'm going to show my age again—of The West Wing. It was one of my favourite shows; it still is. There's the left-wing President of the United States who bombs other countries, and then one day Josh Lyman is called up by the press secretary to take over in the press room of the White House, and the media force him to admit that they have a secret plan to fight inflation. This government is channelling Josh Lyman. It must have a secret plan to fight inflation, because it's certainly not telling the Australian people what the plan is. So the Australian people can come to two conclusions. They can conclude that the Labor government either has a secret plan to fight inflation or has no plan to fight inflation, because the left hand is not talking to the right hand, or, should I say, the left wing is not talking to the right wing of the Labor Party.

On the one hand, they're promoting wages growth, which will obviously have an impact on inflation. Senator Wong knows that wages growth and inflation are linked. Without productivity increases, wages growth will fuel inflation. It's as simple as that. Without downward pressure on energy prices—which there is no sign of under the current government's policy settings—we're going to see flow-on impacts through the economy and further inflationary pressures on the economy.

It's important that the Australian people recognise the fact that we need a government that takes a fiscally responsible approach to the current economic circumstances. We are now in opposition. We understand that. But the former government made it very clear the economic headwinds Australia would face in the years ahead. They are significant economic headwinds. It's important that the settings the government adopts in the upcoming budget are appropriate for the time. That includes tackling the scourge of inflation.

I am also old enough to remember the period in Australia's history when inflation was absolutely out of control. Sadly, I was a young child. I can remember the impact on my family's farming business during the 1970s when inflation did get out of control. We had a wage and inflation spiral that caused untold pain to the workers of Australia, to working families, to the businesses of Australia, and on our family farm, under former Treasurer Keating. The overdraft that our family's farming business operated on reached 22 per cent. The generation of young people in today's economy, those who have only lived under Liberal governments in their adult life, have seen extraordinarily low interest rates for a long period of time. We have now seen significant increases in a very short period of time.

The challenge for this government in the upcoming budget is to show that they understand the economy, that they haven't bought into the modern monetary theory view of the world that constant spending and constant borrowing is the way to fix this problem. We need to have a set of policies that are appropriate for the times. In doing that, I can absolutely guarantee that this opposition will be looking at that budget with an absolute magnifying glass to ensure the settings that are put in place are appropriate for the times and that we actually do tackle the serious problems that are facing the Australian economy—the cost-of-living pressures on Australian families; the impact of inflation on Australian businesses. That is the test for this government. It's a test that they will be found wanting in.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sheldon.

Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy President. Congratulations on your election, Deputy President.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you.

Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hume must have a very short memory with regard to wages. In the last nine years of a Liberal government, we saw the worst period of wage growth in Australia's history. We saw middle class people in this country wages decline under the previous government. It was no accident. Former Minister Cormann said, 'Low wages growth is a deliberate feature of our economic architecture.' When the Liberals left office, real wages were lower than they were when they entered office in 2013. The labour share of income was at an all-time low while profits were at an all-time high. The McKell Institute has found an average worker would be earning $307 more per week if the wage growth achieved under Labor between 2007 and 2013 had been sustained from 2014 to 2021. That's an extra almost $16,000 per year in the pockets of Aussie workers.

We also know what the cause of low wage growth has been over those nine years. We know that the government's policy was to drive wages down, because that was part of their architecture. Rising job insecurity and a tax on trade unions have kept wages down for a decade. Take the mining industry for example. The Minerals Council had admitted labour-hire casuals get paid, for doing the exact same job, 24 per cent less in their industry, and it's rife through many industries. But the Liberals' response to that, of course, was that it was a made-up issue. Even the Minerals Council were admitting the people were getting ripped off, but it was a made-up issue. No wonder we have had a wages problem in this country for nine long years.

Take gig workers. They are paid just $6 an hour. Former Senator Stoker said, 'That's what they signed up for.' That was her response. Of course, you remember the former Minister Porter saying it was too complicated to turn around and give the minimum wage to those gig workers.

In talking about that, we move to the ABCC, which in six years had received $200 million in funding but only recovered $5 million for workers. That is only $5 million in six years in an industry that's rife with wage theft and wage exploitation. Of course, if you then look at what happened with the CFMEU and construction workers in the second half of 2021, you see the CFMEU got $17 million. That is $5 million for six years compared to $17 million for six months. You can see why they're anti-union. That was real take-home pay that was being affected under the previous government's watch.

Take their approach to migrant workers who were ripped off and exploited with full immunity to the companies under the previous government. As we heard in the job security committee inquiry, specific workers are earning just $3 an hour, living in crowded rooms with 10 other people on farms in one case run by the former Liberal minister Richard Alston—surprise, surprise, surprise! It is fundamentally in their DNA. They don't want to see workers getting a decent wage. They don't mind seeing people getting as low as $6 an hour. They don't mind turning around and spending $200 million whilst getting a measly recompense for an industry that's been ripping people off, in particular the construction industry. And they sat by and said it's part of their architecture to make sure wages are kept low and people are exploited in such a way.

Let's look at the Liberals. Will they change? Liberals thought it was a bright idea to campaign against the lowest paid workers in Australia getting a $1 an hour pay rise. They campaigned against it and they have the hide to come in here and say, 'What are you doing about wage increases?' I tell you what: we'll always do more than you and we'll deliver what we've said we're prepared to do.

You might think the Liberals would have learned from the election that their low-wage agenda is deeply unpopular with Australian workers, but there they are again, defending the ABCC, an agency that exists to keep wages down and safety and conditions low in the building industry. They continue to attack trade unions.

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's pretty telling, really, that the Labor Party, who continually sought to undermine the economy at every opportunity whilst in opposition, now realise that there are a lot of things out of their control, a lot of things that occur globally, that impact what happens in our economy, and that government is hard and you actually have to be the ones to make decisions to put in place policies. On this side of the house, we don't ignore that there are global challenges. But what we're seeing from this new government is that, with every decision it makes, it makes a bad situation worse.

After long platitudes through the campaign from everyone who made an appearance, usually to tidy up Mr Albanese's most recent gaffe and then to make a promise that they would guarantee that Australians would see real wage growth, we now know that that's not going to be the case, and that is now being acknowledged by the Treasurer himself. They ran smear after smear after smear—and we just heard them continuing—against the coalition's record whilst in government, but they are now failing to live up to their own promises and guarantee Australians real wage growth. The hypocrisy is unbelievable, but, unfortunately, not surprising.

As I just said, we on this side of the chamber know that not every problem in the economy can be laid at the feet of the government—of either persuasion; not that you would ever give us that grace when you were in opposition—but we will hold you accountable for how you respond to these challenges. The fact of the matter is that it is becoming increasing clear that you have no plan. You keep reciting a plan, which is apparently a plan for a plan, but that does nothing to instil confidence in the Australian people that you will be there to support them and alleviate the current cost-of-living pressures that they're experiencing.

Today we saw Senator Gallagher also walking away from Labor's promise to reduce power bills by $275. I will acknowledge that Senator Gallagher is the first Labor minister who has perhaps moved off the talking points that offered a guarantee to lower power prices, but actually articulating a figure seems to be beyond the scope of this new government. We've seen that Senator Watt can't say a number, and Senator Gallagher here today could not mention the $275 reduction by the end of 2025 that was promised to all Australian households. She talked about being honest with the Australian people but danced her way around guaranteeing an exact figure.

But, again, the important thing to note here is that, for all of Labor's talk, during the election campaign, on easing the cost-of-living crisis, they don't have a plan to make this a reality. They don't understand how to address inflationary pressures. I just note Senator Brockman's contribution—that perhaps they're taking their lead from Josh Lyman in West Wing, and they've got a secret plan to fight inflation. Unfortunately, though, looking at the performance of those opposite over the last week and a half in this place, they may actually be trying to emulate Veep rather than West Wing.

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

House of Cards.

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm sure there are a couple over there with some House of Cards rhetoric ready to go, someone who fancies themselves a Frank Underwood, but at the moment I think we're just seeing Veep being played out in each act. At least if they were following West Wing, episode by episode, we would know what was coming next! We do know that some of them have a penchant, we might say, for plagiarising speeches, so we should probably run a few of them through some of those checks to see how many West Wing lines they pull out as they make their presentations.

But this is part of a broader pattern here. The Labor Party complained that we, the previous government, weren't doing enough, things weren't happening, and they arrive in government with absolutely no plan to address any of the issues that they're facing. They complained about debt and then propose to add more debt than the coalition. They said real wage growth wasn't good enough under the coalition. Now they refuse to guarantee that Australians will see wage growth under their government and have acknowledged that is highly unlikely. They've also said that we refused to address the cost-of-living crisis, and they have now broken their promise to reduce power bills by $275 for families and business.

So, given Senator Gallagher's answers today, I can assume that there are a lot of Australians out there and a lot of small businesses starting to have a look around, and that buyer's remorse might be starting to creep in. They might be seeing they've been sold a pup, because it's clear Labor have no feasible plan to drive up wages and reduce power bills, as they promised they would. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.