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

Ronald Reagan once famously asked the American people to question whether they were better or worse off than they were four years before that. If that question were put to the Australian people, they would give an answer that was very clear: they are worse off; but, more than that, their government is making their situation worse off. Their government, on whom they rely, is making their situation worse off.

We have a nation where household debt is 200 per cent of disposable income—one of the highest in the developed world. We have a government which encourages this debt, because it refuses to reform negative gearing. We have had average weekly earnings in the private sector increase by 1.4 per cent over the year to May 2017. The Prime Minister asked us at question time to reflect on where most people work. He told us that most people work in the private sector. Yes, Prime Minister, that's where wages growth is so weak. The Prime Minister, with his own arguments, undermines his case. There's an important point about wages growth being at 1.4 per cent a year: it's less than inflation. It means people are going backwards. Some people are even in a worse situation. They are not just going backwards relatively compared to inflation; they're going backwards in absolute terms. These are the people who work on weekends, and this government thinks the answer to low wages growth is to cut their wages even further.

Of course, when it comes to health, we see, under the Liberals, costs are up by 20 per cent to visit a doctor and a consultation with a specialist is up by 25 per cent. We know that the government wanted to charge $7 a visit to the doctor. Instead, what they've done is freeze the Medicare system and seen these charges go up. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners noted late last year that 860,000 patients had delayed a visit to their doctor because of the costs. These policies have real-world implications. Of course, while we're on health, private health insurance premiums are up by 27 per cent since the Liberal Party came to office. In the last financial year, Australians paid $4 billion more in premiums than they got back in rebates. The government says that everything is working just fine from their point of view. The Minister for Health pats himself on the back that he has approved these increases. The member for Ballarat and this side of the House say: 'No. That's not good enough. We have an alternative plan.'

When it comes to energy, we see costs going up. The government told us months ago that they had a concrete plan when it came to energy costs. It is called the National Energy Guarantee. Since then, what have we heard? No details. No modelling. It's not a national policy and it's not a guarantee. But, of course, the government have worked this out. To give them credit, they know that they've got a problem on their hands. They know that people are hurting. So what do they come up with? We hear about it a lot. We are told: tax cuts. Whenever the government are in a bit of hot water, which is every day that ends in a 'Y', they trot out: 'It's okay. We've got tax cuts. We're going to give you tax cuts.' The Prime Minister and the Treasurer talk about them a lot. But what we don't have is any detail. We don't know who is going to get the tax cuts. We don't know how big the tax cuts are going to be. We are told they've worked so hard and so long on these tax cuts; it is such a concrete and developed plan; we just don't have details.

What we do have details on is their tax rise. That's what we have got details on. That's the one concrete policy we have from this government. We have a situation where people on $60,000 a year will be paying $300 more in tax, and people on $55,000 a year will be paying $275 more a year in tax. These are the government's actual policies—not their speeches, not their words, not their rhetoric. They want to increase tax. They want to take $1.7 billion more a year out of Australians' pockets. That's actually higher tax. Whenever Malcolm Turnbull talks about tax cuts—

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