Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

In recent months, there has been no shortage of indicators that the Australian economy, under those opposite, is struggling. But perhaps the most reliable indicator—the thing that really gives us in this place a sense of how badly the Australian economy is performing on their watch—is the amount of time that they dedicate in question time to talking about the Labor Party. There has not been, in the history of this Commonwealth, a third-term Australian government which has spent more time obsessing over its opponents than this one. How humiliating for those opposite—having come through the election in May, having won a third term and now being in their seventh year—to spend all of their time talking about the Labor Party. When the Australian people—Australian workers and families and pensioners—need a government focused on wages and growth and jobs, instead they've got a government focused on Labor, Labor, Labor. And that's not good enough.

The economy is floundering and people are struggling; the IMF is slashing its forecasts for Australian growth—all for one reason: those opposite don't have a plan to turn the economy around. The weakest growth in the last decade is an inevitable consequence of a government with a political strategy but not an economic policy. We saw the consequences of that last night when the IMF shaved one-fifth off the growth expectations for this country for this year. But it's not just the IMF. The OECD has downgraded its forecasts. The Reserve Bank has downgraded its forecast. All of them, since the election, have slashed their expectations for the pace of growth in this Australian economy.

The economy has deteriorated substantially since those opposite were re-elected in May—since they wandered around the country pretending that they were good at managing the economy, when the facts tell a very different story. What we're discovering now is that no amount of blame-shifting or finger-pointing or buck-passing can obscure these basic facts about the economy: since the GFC, the slowest growth in 10 years; the worst wages growth on record; declining productivity and living standards; record household debt; the worst business investment since the early 1990s recession. I can go on and on and on about this.

Amongst the many conclusions that we can draw about the underperformance of the Australian economy, one really jumped out at me today when I was listening to the so-called Treasurer in question time earlier on. There has never been in this country a bigger gap between the Treasurer's own stupendous self-regard and his actual performance in the role of Treasurer. There has never been a bigger gap between those things.

Mr Perrett interjecting—

As the member for Moreton reminds me, the flattest tyre needs the most air. When you think of that saying, you think of the Treasurer of Australia. It's dawning on Treasurer Frydenberg now that all the skills that made him the Treasurer in the first place—all the networking, all the backbench stuff, all the pestering of journalists—doesn't matter a cracker when the economy is slowing as it is. He doesn't have a clue how to turn things around and that's why he doesn't have a plan to turn things around.

The IMF rang the alarm bells on the Australian economy, but those opposite are too out of touch to hear them. This is a government which is long on excuses but short on a plan, and in question time today we heard every excuse in the book. We heard that they anticipated this growth slowdown, despite the fact that the budget numbers in April were substantially higher than the outcomes that we are getting. We heard that it was all about global factors, despite the fact that the IMF's downgrade for Australia is four times bigger than its downgrade for the other advanced economies as a whole, and despite the fact that the Reserve Bank, Deloitte and others have said that our problems are homegrown, on the watch of those opposite.

We heard from the Treasurer, remarkably, that the drought is now apparently the No. 1 call on the Commonwealth budget. When you look at his own budget papers—and there's a neat little pie graph in there about where taxpayers' money is actually spent—I think the Treasurer saying that the drought all of a sudden is the No. 1 call on the budget would be news to the minister for social security. It would be news to the Minister for Health, the Minister for Education and the Minister for Defence. Really, it would be news to almost all of the ministers over there that, all of a sudden, drought is the No. 1 call on the Commonwealth budget. We heard all kinds of excuses from those opposite. They are long on excuses and they are short on a plan.

As I said at the outset, we know that the economy is struggling and we know that the government are struggling, because they spend all their time talking about us. Right on cue, in question time, there was the 'human highlighter', the Treasurer, the guy who sits around—he's now conceded that he sits around in his office reading my old transcripts and my old speeches; he's now admitted as much. The 'human highlighter', there he is, poring over these transcripts, making these B-grade memes while the economy flounders and people are struggling. While the economy is floundering and Australians are struggling—stagnant wages, record household debt—this guy, the Treasurer of Australia, spends his time with the little yellow highlighter out, poring over the transcripts of those of us on this side of the House.

In his private moments, I suspect he doesn't have many moments of reflection, but, if he does, perhaps he could reflect that maybe the reason why the Australian economy is performing so badly on his watch is that he spends all of his time focused on us here on this side of the parliament and none of his time focused on the Australian people and their economy and their country. That's what we need and expect from the Treasurer. We expect him and the Prime Minister to come clean on their role and to take responsibility, for once, for the fact that they are overseeing the slowest growth in 10 years and to take some responsibility for the fact that the challenges in our economy are primarily homegrown. There is some international turbulence, of course there is, but the fact that they don't have a plan to deal with our domestic challenges leaves Australia dangerously and unnecessarily exposed to some of that turbulence that we are seeing around the world.

As I said before, the Australian people want those opposite focused on wages. They want them focused on jobs and household debt. They want them focused on economic growth. Whatever they are doing right now is not working. We hear the Prime Minister and the Treasurer trying to retrofit whatever their most recent ideological obsession is as if all of a sudden that's part of some plan to turn the economy around. If that's their plan to turn the economy around, it's not working. All we're asking for, all we're proposing and suggesting in good faith, is that whatever is currently in the economy in terms of interest rate cuts and tax cuts, which we supported, is not currently enough to shift the needle on economic growth. The economy is badly underperforming.

The disappointing thing is that, with all of the things that have changed and deteriorated since the election, all the ways that the economy has gone down since the election, all of this data we've had about household debt and growth and wages and jobs, with 1.9 million Australians looking for work or for more work—all of that has changed; all of that has deteriorated, but the government's policies have not changed. All we're calling on those opposite to do is to take responsibility for it and to come up with a plan, because whatever they've been doing so far has been insufficient. They have proven that, when the economy is floundering, sitting on your hands, crossing your fingers and hoping for the best is not good enough for the Australian people. The Australian people deserve better than the kind of hands-off approach that they're getting from those opposite.

There is a lot of anxiety in the community. We know it. All of us see it at the mobile offices on Saturdays. We are all engaged with our communities, and people say to us that they're worried about their jobs. They're worried about their kids' jobs and they're worried about the fact that no matter how hard they work they just can't seem to keep up with the costs of child care, energy or private health insurance. We understand that. We feel that very deeply. Our responsibility in this building is to make the best decisions and the best judgements about the economic circumstances and to actually do something about them in the interests of the Australian people, in the interests of workers, pensioners, families and people right around Australia—not just in parts of Australia but in every single corner of Australia. That's where those opposite are really derelict in their duty to the Australian people. We all hope that the economy picks up, but hoping is not enough.

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