Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the Turnbull government's failure to ensure that well-paid jobs are available for Australian workers. Labor puts the interests of working Australians first, unlike the Turnbull government, which focuses on lining the pockets of big business. Instead of growing inequality, Labor wants to grow decent jobs that grow our nation. We need to stem the rise in insecure work, underemployment, casualised labour and depressed wages, which are making it harder for families to make ends meet. It is extremely difficult for too many Australians to try to manage their family budgets.

What we have seen this week, and what we have seen for the last 4½ months is a desperate government, bereft of any plan or any outline of a strategy for moving this country forward and giving this nation the future that it deserves. This is a government that has been so preoccupied with its infighting and division that it has resulted in the Prime Minister just grabbing any thought bubble that passes by. We have seen this time and time again. We remember so vividly Mr Turnbull and his Liberals during the election campaign—in fact, one could remind people here that if you were outside the office of the former member for Bass every morning you would hear him and his staff chanting, 'Jobs and growth! Jobs and growth!' They were using that as part of their motivation.

Well, we listened and we heard, just like the Australian people, that 'jobs and growth' mantra. We heard it day after day. But what have we seen since the election? Nothing. What we do understand is that that was all just noise—cheap words and slogans which the Australian community have come to expect from a Liberal government. After all, Mr Abbott, when he was the Prime Minister of this country, was renowned for his three-word slogans.

And we might have some critical things to say about Mr Abbott, but one thing you could say about him is that he actually knew how to campaign—unlike the current Prime Minister. At least with Mr Abbott you knew what you were getting. You knew what you were getting—you knew, if you voted for Mr Abbott, the sort of government that would be delivered to you. This is unlike the current Prime Minister, who only seems to be focused—surprisingly—on his own job.

Unfortunately for the Australian economy and for workers in this country, we have a government that has no leader and we have a leader who has no authority. He has no leadership in terms of being able to guide the economy and create the framework for jobs to be created in this country. We are almost at the end of the parliamentary year, and I am sure I am not alone in wondering what the point of this government is, because they have delivered very little. In fact, every time they set out to achieve something the end result is that they stuff it up.

I am trying to think: what would come first to mind in relation to how they have let down Australians when it comes to jobs? Well, we know that the Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, has spent the last 18 months creating uncertainty within the agriculture industry, amongst our fruit growers, and in the tourism industry while he has been unable to resolve the backpacker tax issue. This is having a huge impact right around the country, no more so than in my home state of Tasmania. As I said, 18 months! Barnaby is pretty good at mucking things up, but 18 months? Even now, in the second-last week of the parliamentary sitting, we are yet to have any legislation before us to have that issue resolved. And I know, because I was on the committee when we were taking evidence in Launceston where the fruit growers were giving evidence, that the tax is not just an issue confronting backpackers, because if they do not have these backpackers coming in and picking the fruit then that fruit will just rot on the trees and fall to the ground, and no-one will have a job. With those backpackers coming in they are able to create real jobs—meaningful jobs—for local Tasmanians.

This government, quite frankly, is a failure on all levels. The Prime Minister did promise that he would fix the budget and create jobs and growth, but all he has delivered to date is a growing deficit, more debt, record low wages and record underemployment, and we know that his government has put at risk the triple-A credit rating. The unemployment rate in this country is at 5.6 per cent—90,000 jobs, full-time jobs, have been lost this year as a result of the failures of this government. We have over 261,100 young people unemployed in this country. It is an absolute tragedy. Over 1.8 million Australians are looking for work, and we know that in excess of 700,000 Australians cannot find any work at all. That is without those who are under-employed. We have the highest number of Australians since 2006 giving up on finding a job, and the participation rate has dropped to 64.4 per cent. They should be ashamed of themselves.

We cannot forget about wage growth for the year, which is at 1.9 per cent. This is the lowest wage growth on record. It is the lowest wage growth we have seen since data was collected. Families are having trouble managing their budgets. They are having trouble paying their mortgages and their rent. All these statistics point in one direction, which is to the failure of the Turnbull government to provide confidence in the economy, in jobs and in wages.

We also know that this government will do whatever it can to attack working Australians. We saw that last night with their attack on workers, when we were here until about a quarter to three in the morning. We stayed to debate until the wee hours of the morning and today we see them beating their chests because they are all so proud of themselves because they think they have got another one on the union movement in this country. Little do they know and understand that we know they have an agenda to do everything they can to remove penalty rates for hard-working members of our community, particularly in low-paid areas in hospitality, and others. We know that once they get a little bit closer to taking penalty rates away they will then act like the vipers they really are.

But we know that wage growth is flatlining in this country. We have full-time jobs falling for the year. We have a record number of people who cannot find a job and a record number of people giving up even looking for a job. It is devastating and it is so un-Australian.

We know that this government has always supported the big end of town. The big policy item they took to the election was that they were going to give a $50 billion tax cut to the big end of town. We know that Prime Minister Turnbull is beholden to his caucus, particularly those from the right of the party. He will do and say anything to keep his job. He has demonstrated that. The people who voted for him at the last election thought he was a different Mr Turnbull. But what they have seen after voting for him is that he is a man who is just a shadow of its former self, a man who is consumed with keeping his own job. Through the course of the debate this morning I outlined that there is someone else in this place who is fighting to keep their own job—that is, the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Attorney-General Senator Brandis. How many more gaffes will he have before the Prime Minister acts.

Senator Ian Macdonald interjecting—

We here the laughs from the good senator over there. Well, he was calling your colleagues in Queensland 'mediocre'. The reality is that the LNP in Queensland and across this country are all mediocre. This is a government that is mediocre, and this Prime Minister has failed to deliver on the promise he made to the Australian people, which is to be a 21st-century agile government. He has failed miserably. (Time expired)