Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Western Australia) Share this | Hansard source

This was supposed to be the empathy budget. After hours and hours of empathy training, we were going to get a compassionate empathy budget. It was supposed to be the women's budget. After eight long years, this government finally acknowledged that they had not done enough when it comes to women's economic security. But whether it was an empathy budget or a women's budget, it was not a caring budget.

The back-in-black Treasurer handed out $3.2 billion into aged care with zero accountability. We know this government's approach when it comes to how they handed out JobKeeper to businesses that did not need it while denying JobKeeper to businesses and individuals who did. Last night we saw this $3.2 billion pumped into the aged-care sector with no guarantee that it will go towards food, no guarantee it will go towards higher wages, no guarantee it will go towards more places—just throwing public money around.

Today I met with members of the United Workers Union and their Aged Care Director, Carolyn Smith, to talk about what they saw in this budget. These are the people on the front line, the people who actually deliver aged-care services across Australia. One worker, Jude, who has worked in the sector for decades and is an incredibly passionate advocate for the sector and the people she cares about, told me it's projected that in the next two years there will be some 15,000 workers in aged care over the age of 60. That age is getting closer to the end of their working lives and closer to needing support themselves. Jude did not see a proper workforce plan in this budget.

We had other aged-care workers from South Australia and Queensland tell us that in the last two years we had 26,000 people die while waiting for a home-care package. If that's not proof that Australia is falling behind, I don't know what is—26,000 people dying while waiting for home-care packages. What we saw last night means we will continue to fall behind, because it doesn't clear the waiting list. I want to bring the words of aged-care workers into this place. They say, 'We get out of bed because we want to care for people.' They say, 'People are being burnt out; they are leaving the sector.' And they point out the absolutely obvious: 'After eight years of this government, you didn't need a royal commission to know that aged care was in crisis.'

And that's just one area. As this motion highlights, there are so many where Australia is falling behind. After eight years of this government, real wages are lower. Education outcomes have declined. We have the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions of any country in the world. After the glorious reign of former Prime Minister Turnbull and his amendments to the National Broadband Network, Australia is 61st in the world for broadband speeds.

But the real challenge this government faces when it comes to where we're falling behind is where it hits every working family's hip pocket: wages. Last night the Treasurer talked loudly and proudly about his government's plans for the economy, but there was one topic on which he was very quiet: wage growth. The Treasurer's speech last night was half an hour long—4,000 words. He managed to mention wages just once. It was not a paragraph, not a section of his speech but just one word. And we know why that is: because this government has no plan to grow wages. We know that the wage price index is estimated to rise just 1.25 per cent for June and 1.5 per cent for the year after—real wage declines. We've been told that Australia's economic engine is 'roaring back to life'. That was the quote of the Treasurer last night. It's clear that this engine does not roar when it comes to wage growth.

When we look at the report that's been prepared by the member for Bruce, we see that what this government does instead is make people dip into their own savings, dip into the wages they've already earnt rather than give them genuine wage increases. It was this government that forced nearly two million Australians to rip some $35.9 billion from their superannuation just to survive the pandemic. This government, for the last—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 11:57 to 12:08

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