Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It was a real surprise for me as well when I read this motion put by the member for North Sydney, a motion that can only be said to be self-congratulatory. I am pleased to stand here, because I find most of the content of this motion highly contestable. Five minutes will not allow the kind of forensic response that I would like to give, but I will look at a few of the most outrageous claims in this motion, the first being, as highlighted by previous speakers, that the member for North Sydney wants to claim that in the first 100 days of this government it secured Australia's 25th consecutive year of economic growth, which is absolutely astounding.

Of course, the maths is simple: 2016 minus 25 takes us back to 1991. What was happening then? Our proud period of continuous economic growth began then, when we were in the middle of the Hawke-Keating Labor governments, who successfully took Australia into the global economy and did so while preserving an egalitarian society—something this government might want to take a close look at—introducing HECS and Medicare, and increasing the welfare wage. Then the Howard government came into government, cash-splashed its way through a mining boom and passed tax cuts giving us the structural deficit that we are looking at, which those opposite sometimes claim is an emergency and then for the next two years completely and utterly ignore. A Labor government saved us from the global financial crisis by acting quickly, acting on excellent advice and ensuring that Australia's economy—unlike most economies in the world—survived what was a tsunami of economic impacts. Of all the developed nations, we fared best because of Labor's economic policies. This government has nothing to do with 25 years of consecutive economic growth.

The next point that made me laugh, as it has many others, was the notion that the protection of the borders should be something to be celebrated. The irony of this is—this day, this week, as we come back to the parliament—to find that those opposite are talking now about introducing the Malaysia solution that they opposed five years ago. One can only wonder at what history will say of this and the five intervening years, when their opposition to a regional solution proposed by the Gillard government for asylum seekers was beaten down by those opposite and some of their friends on the other side. What will history say of the LNP's politicisation of human suffering across the last five years when, eventually, they land on a solution that they so drastically opposed?

There are a few other points that I want to make with just under two minutes to go. One would be celebrating the fairer and more flexible superannuation system. Well, yes, congratulations to those opposite for reinstating Labor's policy that, in the first iteration of this government, they undid—that would be the low income superannuation contribution.

They have tripled the deficit but they want to congratulate themselves on their handling of the economy. They want to congratulate themselves on getting bankers to come into the parliament to have that cup of tea and talk for two hours to a government-controlled committee, rather than having the royal commission that Australians so sorely want to see to call banks to account for some of the heinous things that were going on in that sector.

The other one they want to congratulate themselves on is increasing protection for women and children against domestic violence. This is absolutely outrageous. I can only assume that the member for Sydney has included this to take a swipe at the former Abbott government—who slashed funding in this space—and they want to now claim they are doing a great job because the current Prime Minister put some funding back. But that funding came too late for community organisations to hang on to staff   , came too late to ensure that programs that were in place continued through those years.

They have also claimed fixing the problems in vocational education and training, and cracking down on dodgy providers. It only took them four years to get around to that and we are yet to see how the implementation is going to go; we have some grave concerns about that. The final joke, of course, is that they are including education in their list of achievements. That is just a joke. (Time expired)

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