Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

One of the core beliefs that I had before coming into this parliament is that politics should be more focused on long-term issues. As a member of parliament, I have a much better understanding of why it is that we seem to get caught up in the politics of the day. As backbench members of parliament, we often have tasks that could fill two days for every day we work, and I know that ministers could have weeks of time for the work that has to be done in one day. So I do understand that in this environment sometimes long-term issues can get brushed away as the day-to-day things come into play. So I am very interested in ways that we can try to shape the political process to change this, because it is obviously not in the best interests of the country. That is why, despite the Charter of Budget Honesty being introduced by a coalition government, there are a lot of things about this piece of legislation that I respect and admire, and I think it has been good for the democratic process.

The Intergenerational reportis one of the core things that I think is fantastic for the nation. What could be better than to have a fact based discussion about where this country is going? It is with very genuine disappointment that I stand today to condemn the way that this government has politicised the Intergenerational report, taking away from all of us the opportunity to have a fact based and values based discussion about what we should be doing in Australia to deal with creating a better future for our children.

We know that this document has been heavily politicised, because Treasury has told us that. We had the Prime Minister claiming in question time this week that the Intergenerational report was prepared by experts at the Treasury. The Treasurer has also recently claimed that the Intergenerational report was 'independent analysis', and yet what we found in estimates was that, when these claims were put to the Treasury Secretary, he said, 'This is a document of the Treasurer.' Again, he said, 'All of the key elements in the Intergenerational report are ultimately matters for the Treasurer.' This is very disappointing. The Senate estimates questions followed reports that were widely in the press about the Treasurer and how he was trying to lean on the department to change the net migration figures of Australia so that the fiscal position under one of the policy settings that he examined would look worse than they would otherwise. How can we expect the Australian people to join us in a discussion when we have the Treasurer trying to fiddle the figures to justify a set of policy settings that he wants to put in place?

There is no better illustration of the politicisation of this document than the way that climate change is managed in the Intergenerational report. We know that this government has some difficult constituencies to manage, but it should try to be honest. If it were being honest, this report would say, frankly, that the biggest long-term economic threat for Australia is climate change. Think about the shape of our economy. Agriculture, mining, tourism—all of these are fundamentally threatened by what could be radical changes in our climate over the next 50 and then 100 years. That is not even starting to mention the natural disasters, the increased fire risk, and the increased and very expensive heatwaves that we are going to need to manage. This could change our way of life. And yet the IGR is pretty tepid on it. There are some things. Sure, there might be some costs, but it also points to the great benefits that we might have. Surprise, surprise—after all this, it gives a ringing endorsement of Direct Action, policy that we know that no serious economist and no serious climate scientist in this country will stand behind.

Then there is the excessive and somewhat sad focus on Labor in this report. This is a government that is so bereft of vision that it spends the majority of the report talking about what it asserts Labor would do were it in government today. I say to you on the other side of the House: 'Get with the program. You are the government. We are the opposition. You are meant to be producing the documents of vision, ideas and leadership for where this country should be heading. Instead, you are obsessing about what you think we might have done were we in government. What a missed opportunity. It is absolutely depressing to me.

I say to you as I have said many times in the House: this is not about any sense of vision or sense of the future; this is about justifying the toxic budget that has been so profoundly rejected by the Australian people. We have heard various mea culpas from different people in the government that this was really about a sales job. We know the Intergenerational report has been politicised to help that sales job. I would say to you on the other side of the House that what you need to recognise is that that budget failed not because it was a bad sales job but because it was bad policy. You decried a budget emergency, then you got rid of taxes on major polluters and mining companies and tried to cut pensions for Australians. We will not have it. (Time expired)

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