Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for McMahon proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The pressing need for competent economic leadership.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In thinking about the Abbott government it is worth posing a question: if the Abbott government were a gameshow, what gameshow would they be? With all the backgrounding of each other, the leaks, the dysfunction, they could be Family Feud. That would be appropriate. Or there is all this speculation about whether the Treasurer will be asked to leave or stay or whether he will get a rose from the Prime Minister or not, so maybe it is The Bachelor. Or, when you look at the blank and forlorn faces of the backbench whenever the Prime Minister gives an answer in question time, I reckon there is a strong case for Blankety Blanks. Or, if you look at how the government is always keen to give tax breaks to high-income earners but tax more low-income earners and provide cuts to low-income earners, perhaps Wheel of Fortune or—even better—Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Or, if you look at the entire cabinet, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? comes to mind.

But I think the winner is a show that was around a few years ago; I am sure many honourable members recall it—it was called The Weakest Link. And we know who the weakest link in the government is. It is a pretty senior weak link: it is the Treasurer of Australia. The Treasurer of Australia is the weak link in this government. One of the government's most senior members, the member with the core responsibility of economic management, is the weak link of the government. That is a big problem for the government, but it is a bigger problem for Australia. It is a bigger problem for our country that we have a man as Treasurer of Australia who is simply not up to the job. We know we are not the only ones who think he is not up to the job. We are not the only ones in the House who think that. We know that the Minister for Foreign Affairs thinks that. I think you have a problem when somebody who was not up to being shadow Treasurer thinks the incumbent is not up to being Treasurer—then the Treasurer should know he has a big problem.

We know also that the nation pays a price for this incompetence. The nation is paying a price right now. We heard all the empty promises about adrenaline rushes and surges in confidence and unemployment coming down, and this Treasurer has delivered the opposite. He is the man without a plan. He is the man who has delivered 0.2 per cent growth for the quarter, the lowest growth in a decade—

Mr Frydenberg interjecting—

When you disregard the global financial crisis and Cyclone Yasi, we have the lowest growth in a decade on this Treasurer's watch.

Mr Frydenberg interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Assistant Treasurer!

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of course, the Treasurer had a cunning plan to deal with this. He went off to the G20—quite appropriately, he represented Australia at the G20—and he was asked about this. He was asked why Australia now has lower growth than the rest of the world after having boasted earlier that Australia had higher growth. He said, 'Well, world growth would be so much lower if it wasn't for me, because at the G20 in Brisbane I told all the other finance ministers they've got to go for growth and they've got to add growth to the global economy.' Of course, they had not thought of that themselves! This came as a great revelation to the finance ministers of the world! They needed the Treasurer of Australia to tell them to go for growth! As he was lecturing the rest of the world, he forgot about his own country. He was in Turkey, but he was behaving like a goose, as he does here in Australia. He lectures everybody else, but he gets it wrong himself. He knows less about the world economy than he does about the Australian economy, and that is a pretty big call, but he was happy to lecture everybody else.

We were always told it was going to be so different. Remember what the Prime Minister said? This is a direct quote—the Assistant Treasurer loves these direct quotes:

Now, I believe that the Coalition I lead understands all of this in the marrow of its bones and that's why I am confident that should there be a change of government later in the year, there will be an instantaneous adrenaline charge in our economy.

An opposition member: That sounds good.

That does sound good, doesn't it? That sounds like a great result—an adrenaline charge. Well, what have we got? Unemployment has increased from 5.7 to 6.3 per cent, and is now at a 13-year high. For the first time in more than 20 years, 800,000 Australians are out of work. Consumer sentiment is 10 per cent below where it was at the time of the last election. We have had the budget deficit double in just the last 12 months. And, of course, growth is lower in Australia than in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and Greece. On this Treasurer's watch, economic growth is lower than in Greece. Just today, we saw that business confidence, measured by the National Australia Bank survey, fell again. It has fallen from plus eight to just plus one in recent months. The Treasurer's favourite preferred index, ANZ consumer confidence, has fallen 5.8 per cent, the largest fall in several years, all on this Treasurer's watch.

We know why confidence is so low in the Australian economy. It is because confidence is so low in the Australian Treasurer. There is a pretty clear correlation. When his cabinet does not have confidence in the Treasurer, why should the Australian people have confidence in the Australian Treasurer? We have the mixed messages about the Australian economy. We have gone from budget deficits, a debt and deficit disaster and budget emergencies to now, when the urgent moral prerogative of the age is to provide personal income tax cuts. We have had the insults to the Australian people, in the debate about housing affordability, about getting a better and better paying job. We have had the wrecking of the renewable energy industry in Australia by this Treasurer, because he drives from Sydney to Canberra—as I do and as many honourable members do—past the wind turbines. They are so unattractive, apparently, to the Treasurer. He says he finds them offensive. Lake George would look so much better with a nuclear reactor in it, the Treasurer always says. That is why he has decided to wreck the renewable energy industry in Australia and wreck the jobs that go with it. We have gone from being the world's largest and best investor in renewable energy to being way down the league table on this Treasurer and this Prime Minister's watch. Why? Because of prejudice—prejudice against renewable energy; prejudice against science.

Of course, we have had the insults to Australia's pensioners, who were told 'they have never had it so good'. 'In net terms out of the budget, it is strongly arguable that pensioners are going to be better off,' the Treasurer told the pensioners of Australia in August 2014. They will be better off by cutting the pension—he thinks the Australian people are stupid. He thinks the Australian people and Australia's pensioners will believe that cutting the pension from 27 per cent of average weekly earnings to 16 per cent of average weekly earnings will make them better off. He was astounded to learn that the pensioners of Australia disagree, and so do the Australian people.

No wonder they have lost confidence in this Treasurer. No wonder the government has lost confidence in this Treasurer. No wonder the Treasurer's tenure is speculated upon—because he is not up to the job. We see this speculation about the Treasurer's role. We see this speculation about the Treasurer leaving the job, and I say the Treasurer should leave the job at the next election when replaced on the election of a Labor government—not by the Assistant Treasurer, not by the Minister for Social Services and not by the Minister for Communications but by a Labor Treasurer who will actually deliver a budget which implements election promises and which implements a program for which a mandate has been sought at an election. That is what the Australian people so desperately need and what the Australian economy so desperately needs. It needs a Treasurer who does not engage in the insults, in dividing Australians between lifters and leaners and in inaccurate statements about bulk-billing rates in his own electorate and about how Australia's high-income households pay half their income in tax, as he told us a little while ago. He told the Australian people that high-income earners pay half their income in tax. There is this thing called marginal tax, which the Treasurer has some difficulty in understanding.

Is it any wonder that the Australian people, just like the Minister for Foreign Affairs, have long ago lost confidence in this Treasurer?

No wonder they long ago lost confidence in this Treasurer and this government. But we are paying a price for it as a nation. On this Treasurer's watch we have seen unemployment up, investment down, growth down and confidence down. The only things that have gone up on this Treasurer's watch are the deficit and unemployment. It is the complete opposite of what the Australian people were told. The Treasurer must take some personal responsibility for this. When the growth figures in Australia are not enough to see unemployment come down, we do not want to see him lecturing the world's finance ministers about how they have got to go for growth. Ironically enough, if not for government spending in the last quarter we would have seen a negative quarter on this Treasurer's watch.

This Treasurer was very strong on rhetoric before the last election. He was very strong at criticising others. He had all the answers at his disposal. It was all going to become so much better when he became Treasurer—but it has all become so much worse. It is time for the Treasurer of Australia to go—but not by the hand of his Prime Minister withholding a rose from him at reshuffle time. It is time for the Treasurer to go when this government is cast into history as a failure which stood for nothing, delivered nothing and was elected in an election of deception.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The gall of the shadow Treasurer to bring this matter of public importance given his record when he was in office! In fact, business confidence was at rock bottom in 2008 when the member for McMahon was the Assistant Treasurer. But it is now in positive territory. We will never let them forget those famous quotes from when they were in government. On ABC Radio National on 13 May 2010, the member for McMahon said, 'The government has returned the budget to surplus three years ahead of schedule and ahead of any other major advanced economy.' That must have been a pretty quick surplus, because it came and went at the speed of light.

We do need good economic leadership in this country after the disaster of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years. They saw massive blowouts on their border protection policies—more than $11 billion—and the human tragedy of that policy. And the member for McMahon was the immigration minister for a considerable period of time. They saw more than 20,000 regulations being created which strangled both small and big business alike. They wasted more than $29 billion on an NBN which became a bloated bureaucracy. They wasted billions on school halls and they wasted $2.8 billion on Pink Batts, which tragically lead to a loss of life. Who can forget the $900 cheques, the cash stimulus that Labor pumped out to 27,000 people living overseas and to 21,000 people who were already deceased? And what about that press release the member for McMahon rushed out before the last election promising no superannuation changes for five years when we know he was part of a government that brought in 12 adverse changes to superannuation and an additional $9 billion worth of taxes? Of course, we know what they did to defence. They reduced defence spending to 1.56 per cent of GDP, the lowest level since 1938. And we also know that they rotated their ministers and their prime ministers in their six years of government. We had two prime ministers, three deputy prime ministers, five ministers for regional development, six ministers for small business and nine ministers for education. It sounds like a nursery rhyme. But it is not. It is actually the Labor Party's record in government.

That is why we need good economic leadership—and we have had that from the Treasurer and the Prime Minister. Listen to what the Treasurer has helped oversee. The number of job advertisements in this country is now 16.2 per cent higher than the level we inherited from Labor. Retail sales are 8.8 per cent higher than we inherited in September 2013. Exports are now 11.4 per cent higher than the level we inherited in September 2013. The number of residential dwellings under construction is 23 per cent higher than when we came to government. Personal bankruptcies are at a 20-year low. Investment in the services sector grew by 12 per cent in the last financial year. Dunn & Bradstreet noted last week that 'we are seeing robust levels of optimism across all sectors in the Australian business community'.

As the member for McMahon said, we had 0.2 per cent growth in the June quarter. This followed GDP growth of 0.9 per cent in the March quarter, which was much higher than expectations and considerably higher than other G7 countries. The resource-reliant nations of Canada and Brazil have had consecutive quarters of negative economic growth—they have technically gone into recession—whereas Australia continues to its 25th year of economic growth. Our plan is much more than just plying back Labor's debt. If you look at some of the numbers in the IGR, if we had not taken drastic steps in the last two budgets, Labor' debt would have seen us at 122 per cent of GDP, or $5.6 trillion, by 2055. I can tell the House that because of our legislated measures—not our announced measures but our legislated measures—we have halved that debt trajectory to just $2.6 trillion, or 57.2 per cent of GDP, by 2055. We accept that that is too high. And if we are able to get our other measures through the Senate then I am sure that we will significantly reduce Labor's debt.

There are other positive signs across the economy. More than 330,000 jobs have been created since we came to office. That is four times faster than under Labor. We have seen record female workforce participation. In fact, 171,000 women are in jobs who were not in jobs at the time of the 2013 election. Retail trade is also stronger and service exports are stronger. As well, we saw a large jump—223,000—in the number of new companies registered in Australia in 2014. That was a 10.2 per cent increase on the level we saw in the year before that. And Greg Hunt, as environment minister, has done a brilliant job in cutting red tape and green tape, which has seen nearly $1 trillion worth of projects receive their environmental approval—and since we came to government we have halved the approval time.

You have heard this chamber debate long and hard the importance of infrastructure and the Prime Minister declare that he wants to be Australia's infrastructure Prime Minister, and he is delivering. The WestConnex project, with a $1.5 billion contribution from the federal government, will create 10,000 direct and indirect jobs. The Bruce Highway, with a $3.6 billion federal contribution, will create another 10,000 jobs. The Pacific Highway duplication, which will receive a $5.6 billion contribution, will create 4,000 jobs in construction. NorthConnex, with a $398 million contribution, is expected to create more than 8,000 jobs. And, of course, regarding a second airport for Sydney, where there was nearly half a century of delay and deliberation, a decision has now been taken by this government. The second airport for Sydney is forecast to create 4,000 construction jobs and 35,000 jobs by 2035.

We all know about the infamous East West Link, which was shovel-ready and was going to create thousands of jobs. The member for Deakin, the member for Corangamite, the member for La Trobe and the member for Casey were all firmly aware of the benefits that would have flowed from that project when those opposite and their brothers in the union movement and in the Labor Party in Victoria ripped up a written, signed, agreed contract and introduced the dark spectre of sovereign risk into my state of Victoria and into our country, Australia.

Then, of course, today's question time and today's motion were all about the coalition's commitment to succeeding in free trade where those opposite have failed. We know that in their six years in government they failed to deliver a free trade agreement with Korea, a free trade agreement with Japan and a free trade agreement with China. We know that tens of thousands of new jobs will be created in agriculture. In places like Broome you will see mining, agriculture and gas production. In areas across the country you will also see our wine growers benefit. In my state you will see financial services and other professional services benefit. Today, services are 70 per cent of our economy but just 17 per cent of our exports. That is the big winner out of the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement. With all of our exports being 95 per cent tariff free over the life of this agreement, it can only be a good thing for Australia. That is why Labor luminaries like Bob Hawke and Martin Ferguson and the state premiers Daniel Andrews, Jay Weatherill and Anna Palaszczuk in Queensland are all behind this agreement. Even Bob Carr has jumped on the bandwagon and agreed to this agreement. He has supported it while the Labor Party is again singing the tune of the union movement.

As we heard today in question time, the Leader of the Opposition was opposed to the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement before negotiations even began. He called it a rushed agreement four weeks after negotiations began and continues to be an obstacle because he supports the union cause and not what is in the national interest.

We have a very proud record. The Treasurer has led from the front. He has delivered a budget that has been well received by big business and small business and that has created tens of thousands of new jobs across the economy. In Andrew Robb we have a trade minister who is delivering new agreements for us with important economies. We have a Prime Minister whose leadership and commitment to jobs, growth and productivity is actually seeing the light of day. This is a welcome relief after the disaster of Labor.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am glad to hear the Assistant Treasurer referring to the MPI as a welcome relief. I certainly regard it the same way. Let's play a game of 'who said it'.

It is the height of hubris to dismiss out of hand dire warnings of a possible downturn from respected observers. It is wise to listen and prepare.

  …   …   …

Protracted downturns in economic activity are very damaging in terms of lost output and lost jobs and it can take a very long time for the damage to be made good.

  …   …   …

The resources boom has made a wonderful contribution to Australia's prosperity and the mining industry will continue to be an important industry sector but we must prepare for the day when the boom times are gone.

We must Budget for reality rather than hope.

We must plan our economy based on reality rather than exception.

Funnily enough, it was not the venerable Paul Keating who issued those wise words, or even his successor, the workaday Peter Costello. It was none other than the current Treasurer—back in the days before he actually got his hands on the country's economic levers.

It seems incredible to think it now, but back when he was in opposition the member for North Sydney seemed to understand a thing or two about the Australian economy. I do not want to overdo this, but he seemed to comprehend the importance of protecting jobs while supporting growth. He said all the right things about needing to have a plan to grow Australian investment and business beyond the mining boom. He even acknowledged that pie-in-the-sky, Pollyanna-ish positivity does not cut it when you are staring down serious risks in the global economy. What a complete and utter disappointment Treasurer Hockey must be to that shadow Treasurer of two years ago, because protracted downturns are very damaging, and that is exactly what the Treasurer has presided over for the past two years.

GDP growth has been trending downwards ever since his disastrous first budget of 2014. After five quarters of falling growth, the latest figures show the Australian economy is barely expanding at all. While fiscal policy has detracted from growth over the past year, the economy might well have gone backwards but for a blip in quarterly government spending in the most recent numbers. Unemployment is at its highest level in 13 years. Annual wage growth is at 2.3 per cent—the lowest level since the Australian Bureau of Statistics started collecting those figures in 1998. The Treasurer's solution to housing affordability is to 'get a good job that pays good money'. But under him there are fewer good jobs, and those jobs that are around do not pay as good money as they would if we had stronger wages growth.

Against his own advice in opposition, the Treasurer's budget is built on hope. The Reserve Bank of Australia says the growth figures on which Treasurer Hockey's budget is built are wildly optimistic in the current climate. Growth will need to climb by a full 1.5 per cent over the next few years to meet their projections. We need growth of over three per cent to bring unemployment down. But at the moment we have anaemic growth of two per cent and falling. So far on their watch, growth has been slowing every quarter since their first train wreck of a budget. What is most worrying about all this is that the Treasurer and the government have absolutely no plans to fix any of their problems. They are drifting along hoping that something miraculously crops up instead of knuckling down, putting all their culture war nonsense to one side, stopping fighting the ABC and wind farms and coming up with an economic plan. Jobs and growth are not like Bloody Mary in the horror story; you cannot make them appear just by chanting the words enough times.

Since it seems that the last time Treasurer Hockey actually had anything valuable to contribute on the economy was when he was in opposition, I would submit to the House that Australia would be much better off if he went back there as quickly as possible. Under the Pre-election Fiscal and Economic Outlook we had debt peaking at 13 per cent. Now we have debt peaking at 18 per cent, and the deficit doubled just in the past 12 months. From opposition, the Real Solutions campaign brochure said 'Taxes will always be lower under a coalition government.' Well, in the 2012-13 tax year the tax-to-GDP ratio was 21.5 per cent, and at the end of the forward estimates, under this government, it is projected to go to 23.4 per cent. We have Roy Morgan business confidence at a four-year low and consumer sentiment 11 per cent below where it was in the last election. You will hear from the coming speakers—the members for Rankin, Parramatta and Wills—that there is a pressing need for economic leadership at the moment. If those opposite approved one thing beyond a doubt in the past two years it is that they were utterly incapable of providing economic leadership.

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are a lot of talking heads on the other side, all of whom forget that their plan from 2008 to 2014 put us on the road to nowhere.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

All we did was save Australia from the recession.

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is actually fortuitous that the member for Lilley and his chief abacus counter over there, the member for Rankin, sounding off in the front row, are in the chamber, because I would ask them: how is it economically competent and responsible—the subject of their MPI—to spend every dollar of the economic bequest left by the Howard government? How is it economically responsible to repeatedly promise but never deliver a surplus? They talked about a surplus; they simply forgot that it was the Howard-Costello governments that delivered a surplus in 2008. None of them on that side of the chamber did. How is it economically responsible to put our debt on a trajectory to $667 billion—two-thirds of $1 trillion? How is it economically competent and responsible to entrench legislated spending beyond our capacity to pay, to the point where we have to borrow $100 million every day just to pay for things our revenue does not cover? How is it competent and economically responsible to trot out poorly considered policy, at great cost to the taxpayer, that did not work?

We can all remember Fuelwatch, GroceryWatch, the set-top box scheme, cash for clunkers, the green car scheme, the solar panels program, the Indigenous housing scheme, a computer for every child. What happened to all the trade training centres and the GP superclinics? They were a huge cost, and, as Australians quickly learned, they never survived the Labor Party doorstop. Then we had the disastrous, overpriced and rorted school halls program that wasted $1 billion of taxpayers' money. What happened to the childcare centres and ending the double drop-off that never happened? Remember them unpicking our border protection policies that worked, creating $12 billion of unanticipated expense for the taxpayers? What about the pink batts scheme, and the four deaths, which is the subject of a royal commission? What about the famous back-of-the envelope calculation with Senator Conroy and Mr Rudd—$70 billion on the back of the envelope, with no business plan for the NBN? What about the $900 cheque giveaways to dead people and overseas backpackers, and the mining tax that raised no money but that they promised would raise a huge amount of money? What about the live cattle ban that destroyed our supply chains without notice and damaged our relationship with Indonesia, and the perennial favourite, the carbon tax we were never going to have under a government Julia Gillard led? How is it responsible to cut Defence spending to its lowest level since 1938, ripping $15 billion out of the Defence budget, down to 1.56 per cent of GDP, never making a decision on any ships or submarines—the capability gaps that result? What about Labor pillaging even its own aid budget of $5.7 billion? They diverted $750 million in aid spending to address the out-of-control situation on the border, making the Gillard government the third-largest recipient of Australia's aid budget. Where is the economic and moral value of Labor's 2012 legislation to commandeer people's bank accounts, their hard-earned savings—$550 million stolen from 156,000 bank accounts?

But it gets worse. Having presided over such gross incompetence, they now stand in the way of things that will actually make our economic future better. Perhaps of greatest concern is the Labor Party's appalling attempt to kill off the China free trade deal—the false, xenophobic, irresponsible campaign run by the CFMEU. It should not surprise us, because opposition leader Bill Shorten has form. They have their heads down, but they can remember him clambering onto the back of that flat-bed in Adelaide and giving a speech that the Australian said stank with racist and xenophobic overtones. That is what you do to the greatest trade opportunity confronting our country. It confirms how beholden the Labor Party is to militant unions, yet these free trade deals will provide enormous opportunities for Australia. So, what I say to those opposite, before they bring on another MPI like this, is: stop trying to rewrite history, have a look at your record and do what is right for the economic prosperity of this country.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, there is five minutes of our lives that we are never getting back, unfortunately. On this side of the House we have our differences with the foreign minister of Australia. We have our differences with her over policy. We have our differences with her in question time from time to time. But if there is one thing we agree with the foreign minister about it is that the Treasurer is not up to the job. And we know she thinks this, because she went to see the Prime Minister late last year, in December, in a Sydney summer, and said, 'Look, I don't think the Treasurer is up to the job; a lot of our colleagues don't think the Treasurer is up to the job.' So we should start by accentuating in this place where we agree. We agree with the foreign minister that the Treasurer of Australia is hopeless. Since that meeting in December of last year, the Treasurer has staggered around and stumbled around for another nine months. But I think we probably agree that it will not be long now before that side of the House put the Treasurer out of his political misery. When the Treasurer speaks in question time, there is this respectful silence that descends over that side of the House. I was thinking during question time today, when the respectful silence descended, that it was a bit like the respectful silence you get when you make a valedictory speech in this place, and then then I thought that is no coincidence, because it will not be long now before the Treasurer gives that valedictory speech.

On the one hand, it is a bit rough to single him out. It is a competitive field when we talk about economic incompetence over on that side of the House. When I woke up during the trade minister's speech on the FTA today, I thought I had accidentally flipped over onto The Muppets or something like that. You have the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia in question time saying that a question about Australian jobs in our shipping industry was a trivial matter. That is a disgrace.

So on one hand it is a bit rough to single the Treasurer out, but on the other hand it is really hard to go past the guy who says that in his electorate of North Sydney they have some of the highest rates of bulk-billing when in reality they have some of the very lowest; a bloke who smokes a cigar and dances to Best Day of My Life on the day that he brings down a horror budget; a guy that says there would be more bulk-billing in this community if people drank a bit less beer; a bloke who, as the Treasurer of Australia, does not understand what marginal tax rates are in this country. You do not need a PhD in economics from the ANU like my colleague here to understand marginal tax rates in this country. Our Treasurer does not have a clue. This is a guy who said that, if we change the indexation for pensioners and extend out the eligibility, the pensioners will be somehow magically better off; a bloke that said that poor people do not drive cars; a guy that said that, if you do not like the house you are in or you cannot crack the housing market, what you need to do is go down the street and put your hand up for a higher paying job, as if there are lots of those littered around; and a guy that lectures the G20 about growth and says, 'Look, if only you all had a GP tax, all of these problems would just be a distant memory in the global economy if you did what I'm doing , which is slug people to go and see a doctor in the best health system on the planet.' You cannot make this staff up. It is extraordinary.

The Treasurer of this country is the Britney Spears of Australian politics: oops, he did it again and again and again and again, raining his gaffes and his misjudgements like confetti on the economic debate and this country. This would be a comical thing if there were not consequences. If we could just dismiss him as sort of a lovable buffoon, some sort of endearing clown, we could dismiss this. But the problem is that, as the shadow Treasurer said and as others have said, there are consequences from the Treasurer's incompetence. Every day of the two years and one day since they were elected, he has gone out of his way to smash confidence in our economy. As others have said before me, consumer sentiment is 11 per cent below where it was at the election, after they promised an adrenaline surge on their election. The NAB Business Survey, which only came out today, is down 11 points—that is us compared to them. When it comes to consumer sentiment, there was a 5.8 per cent hit just in the last week since we had those very weak growth figures come out from the ABS. The Australian economy is stuck at below-trend growth of two per cent. Annual growth has trended down since the Treasurer's damaging first budget last year. We have soft growth in this country because confidence has been smashed by this Treasurer. The consequences of smashed confidence and slowing growth are that unemployment has increased from 5.7 percent to 6.3 per cent, to be at 13-year highs. Eight hundred thousand Australians are out of work. That is why the Treasurer is not up to it.

Fiona Scott (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One of the things I find most interesting from the member for Rankin was his admission that he sleeps through parliament. It is an interesting insight, because I think that explains that the former abacus counter to the member for Lilley obviously was sleeping through the last government, and hence they have a record to show that they were definitely asleep at the wheel. There were record deficits. Labor produced the six largest budget deficits in our country's history. They left a massive debt. Labor's government debt blew out $320 billion and was projected to reach $667 billion in 10 years. We had the world's biggest carbon tax. More people were unemployed under those opposite. Definitely, they were asleep at the wheel.

Even now, if you look at those opposite, they are still asleep at the wheel. Bill Shorten, the Leader of the Opposition, does not even acknowledge the support of so many other Labor stalwarts right around the country when it comes around the free trade agreement: Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, Daniel Andrews, Jay Weatherill, Andrew Barr and Luke Foley, not to mention Bob Hawke, Simon Crean, Martin Ferguson, John Brumby, Peter Beattie and Bob Carr. But no; Bill Shorten, the Leader of the Opposition, is completely against growth. He does not want to see growth. He has absolutely no economic leadership. Talk about competent leadership—he has no economic leadership. He completely negates what the Financial Services Council says will benefit Australia by $4.2 billion and add an extra 10,000 jobs to Australia. What about the National Farmers' Federation, who state there would be $300 million in benefits to agriculture in 2016 alone? In my electorate, the free trade agreement will bring so many more jobs and so much more opportunity to the people of Western Sydney.

We are part of a government that is delivering for the people of Western Sydney and delivering for Australia with an infrastructure plan that is getting our region moving: $3.6 billion in infrastructure that will start seeing jobs flow to Western Sydney. This is absolutely crucial for our nation's future. We are also committed to getting the debt down. We have already created 335,000 jobs since the last election. We have the highest female participation rate, at record levels, with over 171,000 more women in jobs than at the time of the 2013 election. Bankruptcies are at the lowest levels in 20 years. Environmental approvals have been given to 176 projects, valued at more than $1 trillion. A record 223,013 new companies were registered in 2014. There is a $50 billion infrastructure program to improve road and rail links to reduce travel times and support economic growth. This is a plan. This is competent leadership. But those opposite are not interested. They are too busy falling asleep in parliament. Then there are the tax cuts for small businesses. That 1.5 per cent is going to help get small businesses back on their feet and creating more jobs for so many Australians. We will see funding for schools increase by 28 per cent over the next four years.

What is Labor's solution? Labor's solution is just more taxes: carbon taxes, mining taxes, bank taxes—you name it. It is all about taxes. We are all about the future of our country. The future of Western Sydney is bright. The Medical Research Future Fund dovetails very well into the emerging Penrith region. We have long been planning to be a centre of health and education. The Medical Research Future Fund fits well into this. The free trade agreement with China also dovetails well with the memorandum of understanding between the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine and the University of Western Sydney. On the day of the Chinese free trade agreement this MOU was signed with the President, the Prime Minister and the vice chancellors of the two universities. This will create the future of our country. This will create so many smart jobs for the people of Western Sydney.

This is competent leadership. This is vision and hope. This is what is going to make Western Sydney the powerhouse it deserves to be. I commend the government for taking a stand, cleaning up Labor's mess and showing the people of Australia what competent leadership actually is.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I said in the first few weeks after the election of the Abbott government, when their lovely glossy plan started to unravel, that it was easy to make a joke about it. It was easy to laugh because it was actually very funny. Unfortunately, it is too serious to joke about. We have made a lot of jokes today. It is easy when you have a joke of a Treasurer and a joke of a Prime Minister to do just that, but now is not the time. It is not funny anymore.

You cannot afford to push the pause button for two years, or possibly three years, at this time in world history. Maybe 20 years ago—when you seem to think you are governing—you could do that. Maybe you could push the pause button for three years 20 or 25 years ago. The pace of change now and the opportunities in the world we need to exploit are too important and too urgent to push the pause button for three years. There is an urgent and pressing need for economic leadership, and we are not getting it from this government. We have not heard anything from the people opposite in this matter of public importance debate that suggests they even begin to understand the urgency and the need.

The world is changing faster than you can imagine. This is an age change. It has been coming for 20 years. It is the beginning of an age change that is going to profoundly change the way people work, who works, what they need to know and how business operates. We can see it—and we call it disruption—but it is much bigger than that. A wave of change is coming and Australia is going to ride it or drown in it. If this government continues to ignore it, continues to push us backwards and continues to kill off our capacity every day to take those challenges on, we will drown in it and this government will wear it.

I will give an example of a crisis that is approaching very fast. It started with this government two years ago when they dared the car industry to leave. We are already seeing now engineers being laid off in those car companies. I am not going to talk about the car companies; I am going to talk about the global fragmented supply chain that we should be getting into. Capacity is not just teaching STEM in schools; it is actually keeping that capacity in our businesses. Investment went into those businesses and built that capacity and skill. We are about to see thousands of those businesses go to the wall at the very time when global supply chains are fragmenting and borders within corporations are falling down. We need those companies to survive.

Mr Pasin interjecting—

I hear the interjection and I am going to take it. This is a government with so little experience in governing that it thinks that just being open for business is enough. It thinks that opening a door without having companies to go through it is enough. You need companies that have the capacity to go through that door. In the last two years it has killed thousands of them. There has been an 80 per cent reduction in renewable energy investment in this country. I had 13 solar installers and now I have got one. It is a growth industry all around the world. This government killed it off at the very time we should be growing it. It is killing off our capacity to manufacture. We will lose one-fifth of our manufacturing sector when those car industries close. Do the maths, if you are capable. We will lose one-fifth of our advanced manufacturing capacity because the government dared the car industry to leave this country.

This is the government that we have. At the very time when Australian businesses should be developing that capacity and moving into global supply chains, at the time when advanced manufacturing makes labour costs less of an issue when you are competing with our neighbours to the north and when our dollar is back at a reasonable level, we have a government killing off the future. It is killing it off.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

All the more reason to export to China.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Again I hear the interjection. I was talking to the Business Chamber of New South Wales the other day about this government and they were asking, 'Why don't they get it?' I said that it is really simple: their Prime Minister, their Treasurer and their Assistant Treasurer—all the economic people—went into the public sector in their early 20s and they think you become prosperous with efficiency of the spend. They have no understanding of the relationship between spend and growth—none. They think that if you want to prosper you cut your marketing budget. I have seen businesses with far more experience than this lot do it. These people are unbelievable. Business is talking about the lack of experience in this government. Business is talking about the fact that this government does not understand how you grow an economy or a business. We have seen actions by this government in the last two years that will have a devastating effect on our capacity to grow. You are going to wear it. It is going to be sheeted back to you. You can talk about us as much as you like, but for God's sake talk about the country. That is your job.

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Bruce Billson is very safe if you are the shadow parliamentary secretary for small business. This MPI today on competent economic leadership clearly says to me that no-one would ever look to the absolute abject failure of the member for McMahon for economic leadership, nor would they look to the venerable member for Lilley, the mentor to the member for Rankin. I saw the member for Rankin look really excited when he gave him a bit of a pat on his head after his contribution. We know you were behind his 500 promises of a budget surplus. Where were those surpluses? Where was that wonderful economic leadership?

Here, on the MPI today, we are looking for 'competent economic leadership'. Where was that wonderful economic leadership from the member for Rankin, who was the adviser? He was the main man advising the venerable member for Lilley, the worst Treasurer this country has ever had—I would say, the worst Treasurer that any advanced economy has ever said. Many members opposite put out a newsletters saying that they delivered a budget surplus. In fact, the member for McMahon, the man who put forward this MPI today, said that the he had delivered a budget surplus in 2008. Where was that wonderful economic leadership that the Labor Party are now calling for? Well, unfortunately, the Labor Party have not learned their lessons. Quite frankly, until they do learn those lessons, the Australian people will mark them down. They have not shown any contrition for their abject failure over their six years in government.

One undisputed statistic that nobody in this House can argue against is the fact that we have gone from 3,600 jobs on average a month under Labor to last year, where we created 16,700 jobs a month to this year, where we created 23,200 jobs a month. You cannot fudge those numbers in any way. We have gone from 3,600 a month being created under Labor to 23,200 a month under this government. On this side of the House, because some of us actually have private sector experience—we are not all union hacks like those opposite—we do not take credit for all of that. We are not so arrogant as to take all of the credit for taking job creation from 3,600 a month under Labor to 23,200 a month. We accept that that is the great work of individuals, small businesses and entrepreneurs in the private sector who have created those jobs. But we created the environment that has enabled them to flourish and we will continue to do so, and there is a much more work to be done.

When the Australia people are looking for competent economic leadership, I can assure them they will not be looking at the member for McMahon, the man who will be remembered for Bowen's black hole, the $13 billion black hole that he left, or the man that he replaced, the member for Lilley, who, quite frankly, is just like a Christmas present every day. When I see the member for Lilley walk into this chamber every day, I just think wonderful: we will remind the Australian people day after day of the abject failure of the Labor Party over their six years in government and the reality that the Labor Party have not learnt one single lesson.

Come election day, the Australia people will be thinking about the security of their job, whether they can pay their mortgage and about their children's future. They will see the party opposite who argues against trade liberalisation. The left of the Labor Party now are large and in charge. Sure, they might have been humiliated at their federal council a little while ago—sorry, member for Scullin, I know that was difficult for you—but they are large and in charge.

The Australian people will not entrust their country to a party who does not accept trade liberalisation. I hate to say it, but those opposite will be taken to ChaFTA kicking and screaming. Otherwise, they will get absolutely marked down. So when the Australian people are looking for economic leadership, I can assure them they will not look at the abject failures opposite—the people who slunk through the university system into a union and now they have their seat on the green leather. Actually, the Australian people will look for people who have real life experience: the ability to understand what they need to do to create the jobs, the wealth and the productivity that will grow the economy in this country. They will not go back to the member for McMahon and the failed member for Lilley.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The pressing need for competent economic leadership is a fitting subject for today's matter of public importance. We have much higher levels of unemployment than we did 30 years ago. We have much higher levels of youth unemployment, much worse long-term unemployment and serious problems of underemployment. We have much larger foreign debt and much larger budget deficits. The distribution of wealth between rich and poor is becoming less equal. The social problems generated by frustrated ambition, drugs, crime, mental health problems and homelessness are on the rise too.

Australia's GDP per capita went backwards in the June quarter, sliding by 0.2 per cent. Reports that GDP increased depend on the use of population creep. GDP increased by 0.2 per cent, but that was only due to population growth. GDP per capita, which is a far more accurate guide to living standards than GDP, declined. Not surprisingly then, real net national disposable income per head, which is the best measure of living standards, slid by 1.2 per cent in the three months to June. This is the fifth consecutive slide in real net disposable income per head, which is now five per cent below its peak in 2011. In fact, our economic growth rate is lower than the US, the European Union, Britain and Greece. But the geniuses who have dug us into this hole want us to keep digging and they say that flat growth means that we should ratify their China free trade agreement.

The government have been doing its best to muddy the workers concerning the changes to the temporary migrant worker arrangements we have with China which are contained in their agreement. They kept these provisions secret during the negotiations. They say it is too late to change them now. But the Department of Immigration and Border Protection just yesterday confirmed that if this China FTA comes into effect, there will no longer be labour market testing for Chinese nurses, engineers and other skills category 3 occupations. In a hearing before the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, the department acknowledged that, at present, nurses and engineers are required to undergo labour market testing, but that if this China FTA is ratified this labour market testing will no longer be required. This shows that that Prime Minister and the trade minister and others have been guilty of seriously misleading the Australian people about the impact of the agreement.

The Prime Minister says that nothing changes to our labour market laws under this agreement, when the government has expressly said it will bring forward a migration act determination, which will allow the minister for immigration to grant 457 visas without labour market testing in relation to contractual service suppliers. This is defined to mean a natural person of China who has trade, technical or professional skills. The labour market provisions of this deal go far beyond business executives and martial arts practitioners, the way the government has tried to present this. In fact, if this parliament agrees to the deal which is now before us, we are permanently giving away our capacity to require labour market testing in a whole range of trades and occupations.

There is a list of occupations which I have here, which is in total over 200 long, where labour market testing is presently required but will not be if this China FTA is ratified. It includes: engineer, nurse, automotive electrician, motor mechanic, diesel motor mechanic, motorcycle mechanic, electroplater, metal polisher, sheet metal trades worker, welder, aircraft maintenance engineer, fitter, fitter and turner, locksmith, watch and clock maker and repairer, tool maker, panel beater, vehicle body builder, bricklayer, carpenter and joiner, carpenter, floor finisher, plasterer, roof tiler, plumber, gas fitter, electrician general, electrician special class, air conditioning and mechanical services plumber, electrical lines worker, baker, pastry cook, butcher, cook, dog handler, horse trainer, zoo keeper, animal attendant, shearer, veterinary nurse, florist, gardener and many more.

Make no mistake, if this China deal is ratified as is, everyone who is unemployed will face the prospect of jobs in these occupations and many more going to a Chinese worker without first being advertised in Australia. The government's claim that the requirement to pay market salary rates is an adequate safeguard is absolutely rubbish. We read stories of exploitation of temporary migrant workers every day. This China FTA will put Australian jobs and Australian workers at risk. Yesterday's evidence shows the government's denials of this to be absolutely without foundation.

Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is terribly unfortunate that I have had to sit through the contributions from the other side this afternoon. I note that member for Rankin's complaints about the five-minutes of his life he would like back. I will see his five minutes and raise him to 10. I had to sit through the contribution of the member for McMahon, who is apparently the shadow Treasurer. In the 10 minutes that the member had, he spoke half about TV shows and the other half about the Treasurer.

I have not heard anything about a plan from Labor or what they intend to do or what they will do for the economy or what they will do for the nation but they certainly talked a lot about Blankety Blanks and everything else. If we were to talk about TV shows, the closest we would get to those opposite would be the Muppet Show because we know who is pulling their strings. Every time the Leader of the Opposition speaks, we know who moves his lips and it is certainly the CFMEU, and that is not in the interests of this nation by any way at all.

The member for McMahon also spoke about the nation paying the price. Well, the nation is paying the price of six years of instability of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. That is the reality. Those opposite had literally rivers of gold to play with. The country was in an incredibly good economic position and they blew what was left from the Howard government. They spent the whole lot.

Where is the plan of those opposite? We have heard absolutely nothing about what they will do for the economy. The shadow Treasurer does not even know what the tax-free threshold is. Many of the people on this side of the chamber have been in business. We know the tax-free threshold and we know what the correct pay rates are. We know how to make the money that we need to pay those bills at the end of the month because there is nothing more difficult than meeting wages. So I congratulate the people who are out there in the economy doing their best for this country and employing Australians to participate in the economic stability of the nation.

The member for McMahon does have an advantage though. There is one Labor leader in the country who is actually worse, who does not know anything about the economy or how it works, and that would be Premier Palaszczuk, who, when asked what the GST rate actually was, did not know. I guarantee that everyone here knows that it is 10 per cent. It was a very poor reflection on the current Queensland Labor government. Hopefully they will do much better.

What are we doing? We are getting on with it. One of the first things we have sorted out this week is we have got rid of Labor's bank deposit tax. You have not seen too much in the press but that is a 1½ billion-dollar tax put forward by Labor, placed on people's bank deposits—that is, every business, every pensioner, every single person that holds money in the bank—and we have gotten rid of it. We have got rid of the trouser tax. If you did not use your account for three years, Labor took your money. It was absolute criminality. It was theft. We have sorted that out and put it back to where it should be.

We have approved 176 projects for the environment worth more than $1 trillion. That is where the jobs are. It is not us that produces jobs; it is up to business. They are the ones that employ and we must build the framework for them. It is incredibly important.

The Chinese free trade agreement will affect 95 per cent of exports and be duty-free. It includes seafood at 15 per cent. It will eliminate coal tariffs. In my electorate of Hinkler, it will certainly help the horticulture producers. Do not listen to me about it; listen to someone that actually produces stuff. Trevor Steinhardt, from Macadamias Australia, has provided me a quote. He said:

There are great benefits in the free trade agreements. Japan, China and South Korea will definitely help and they have come at an ideal time. Free trade agreements will give us a better return. The macadamia market is rapidly expanding due to tariffs on the ramp down.

This is a great reflection on what we are doing because the more we can put on someone's bottom line, the better the opportunities for them to employ Australians and that is what we are about.

Those on the other side talk about economic management. But this is what they do: they throw all the money in the air and look where it lands and whatever department it falls in basically spends it. The rivers of gold, they certainly roll around in—they turn it into gold body paint and wash it down the river. They do not know how to manage money. Quite simply, they just spend. They gave $900-cheques to people who basically did not need it—some who did not exist, some who were deceased and certainly some who were not even Australian citizens.

On this side of the House, we are about a stronger economy. We are about lowering taxes. We are about ensuring the security of this nation and that there are jobs for our people in the future, including our children. What those on the other side will promote when it comes time for the election will be free televisions. Their economic plan will be to give everybody a free TV, which is what they did previously over and over again.