Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In speaking on the address-in-reply, I want to address the government's industrial relations agenda in particular, which it is still trying to get through the parliament. At the core of this agenda are two bills: the registered organisations bill and the ABCC bill. The government says it is all about cleaning up corruption in Australia. They say it is all about making building and construction more efficient. But I say it is about the Liberals' signature policy; I say it is really about Work Choices.

The Australian labour movement was the only thing standing between Australian working families and Work Choices in 2007, and it, along with the Fair Work Act, is the only thing standing between them now. These bills are all about crushing the labour movement. On the other side of this chamber, they have clearly not forgotten 2007. So it is not about a union watchdog; it is about letting the dogs loose on workers' conditions, across the entire Australian workforce.

These bills are about smashing our trade unions. These bills are about lifting the profit share even higher. These bills are about trying to further drive down the wage share of our national income. This is a recipe for weaker growth, precisely at a time when the global economy is the most vulnerable it has been since 2008-09. These bills are part of the Liberal Party's economic approach that will lead to further wealth concentration, not wealth creation.

The IMF rejects the trickle-down economics which are embraced by these bills. What do I mean by 'trickle down'? The notion that if you give more resources to the rich, the benefits will simply trickle down and, magically, we will all be better off. It is a notion that is disproved by our experience, across the developed world, of concentrated incomes at the top; hollowed out middle classes, particularly in the United States; and armies of working poor. If you ask any person in the street about the registered organisations bill or the ABCC bill, they would not be able to tell you much. But if you ask them about the Panama papers, they might have something to say about that.

So these bills say a lot about the government's priorities. This is the government's spiteful vengeance writ large. In effect, those opposite took our nation to an early and expensive double-dissolution election over something that was not an issue on the street.

The issues on the street are entirely different. Families are asking how on earth they can juggle the strain of wages that have actually gone backwards over the last year. They are asking how they can absorb this government's hit on the social wage by cuts to Medicare that directly impact on family health costs. Expectant mothers are asking how they cope with cuts to paid parental leave. Students are asking about the explosive increase in the cost of university degrees. And of course all are asking about the threat of penalty rates they earn from an out-of-hours or weekend job. If they are a family with kids, they are asking serious questions about the future of education in this country. In Lilley, over 40 schools will lose an average $3.2 million—the equivalent of sacking one in seven teachers.

So this government's agenda fails what I call the motivation test. In public life, it is not just what you do; it is all about the way you do it and it is all about why you do it. LNP governments never find their policy priorities in the daily struggles of middle-income Australians; they find them in the musty boardrooms of corporate Australia and the mouldy hallways of the Institute of Public Affairs. And what are they doing? What they are doing is attacking the labour movement. It goes to the very core of their being.

It is ironic that we went to an election over productivity on building sites at a time when the ABS data clearly shows that productivity in the construction industry has been surging since 2011. It is equally telling that, at a time when corporate tax evasion is rampant and the Panama papers have disclosed corporate transactions that are questionable, the government's IR bills contain higher penalties for civil contraventions by union officials than apply in the Corporations Act for directors of companies. What is truly alarming is: construction workers will be investigated by the ABCC and will be denied the most fundamental and basic legal rights—the right to a lawyer of their choice as well as the right to remain silent. Everyone in this House should just dwell on that and reflect on that. The Prime Minister simply has not told the whole truth. He wants to take away the legal rights of trade unions but leave them in place for his corporate high-flyer mates.

This is the ugly hand of greed and class politics at its worst, and the Prime Minister has his fingerprints all over it. While the Australian people are worrying about jobs, working conditions and attacks on the social wage, their Prime Minister is working to crush the very organisations that are the last line of defence against growing wealth and income inequality. So there is a stench of dishonesty about this government—a stench of dishonesty about their agenda, their motives and their foul propaganda. They are all the same, no matter who leads them. Tony Abbott's baton has simply passed to the next runner. People hoped that Mr Turnbull might not have been the same. He was a little smoother and more polished. But scratch the surface and he is just the same. Turnbull and Abbott both fail the motivation test. The Liberal and National parties have simply replaced someone who would say and do anything to be Prime Minister with someone who would say and do anything to be Prime Minister. The election result proved that Australians are doubly disillusioned with Mr Turnbull.

Make no mistake: just as they are hiding a workplace agenda behind sloganeering against trade unions, they are also hiding the truth about their fiscal policy behind deceptive slogans. They say: 'We are not spending like Labor,' when the reality is that they are almost two percentage points of GDP higher than Labor. 'We are not taxing like Labor,' they say, when the reality is that, as a proportion of GDP, taxes are higher, consistently, under the Liberals. 'It's Labor's debt,' they say, when the reality is that Turnbull and Abbott have tripled the deficit. And the list goes on.

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