Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Republic) Share this | Hansard source

This motion from Mr Thompson seeks to congratulate the government for its performance around business investment levels in Australia. I don't know what planet Mr Thompson and those opposite are living on, but, in case they haven't checked lately with the ABS statistics or indeed the RBA, business investment in Australia has fallen off a cliff since this government got elected. It's quite stark that it actually happened as soon as the Abbott government was elected in 2013. The share of nominal GDP that is taken up by business investment has fallen. The share of nominal GDP taken up by business investment was 18 per cent in 2013. Have a guess what it's fallen to today? Over the course of this government, it has fallen to less than five per cent in Australia. The fall is quite dramatic. It happened as soon as the Abbott government was elected, and there's a reason for that. The reason is that, once the Abbott government were elected, in their first budget they got rid of full expensing of capital equipment and extending those loss carry-back measures. They got rid of these measures that they're actually congratulating themselves on here today. It was only after a couple of years that they worked out, 'That was a bad decision; we're going to put them back in.' They were Labor policies, by the way. They're saying, 'We're going to put them back in, and we'll try and reverse the trend.' And, like a lot of things that this government takes on, it hasn't worked, and business investment has continued to fall in Australia.

I've got to say that when it comes to economic indicators, business investment isn't the only one. They're not alone on that, because, when it comes to nearly every other key economic indicator, Australia has got worse under this government. We all know that people's incomes aren't increasing. Real wages in Australia are actually falling, and the government admits this in the budget papers that they've just released. Over the course of the forward estimates, Australians are going to go backwards when it comes to their real wages. Labour productivity is the key to economic growth. If we're going to get our economy growing again, the key is to get more labour productivity into our system. Yet what has gone on with labour productivity? For the first time since we've been collecting data about labour productivity growth in Australia, it has actually fallen. So under this government Australia is producing less per employee than it has at any other time since we've been keeping records about labour productivity here in Australia.

We all know what's gone on with household debt in this country. It has exploded. It's at the highest level it has ever been. We're now third worst in the OECD when it comes to levels of household debt—principally around the issue of ballooning house prices, which are out of control once again. There has been a 20 per cent growth in house prices over the course of the last 12 months under this government. What are they doing to arrest that? What are they doing to make sure that younger Australians can get a leg into the housing market? They're introducing all of these first-home-buyer schemes. It's like pouring fuel on the fire; it's making it worse. Talk to any real estate agent throughout the country, and they'll tell you that whenever these first-home-buyer incentives are brought in you'll see record house price growth for the next 12 months. It's pouring fuel on the fire, and it's making it worse for younger Australians.

Wealth inequality is increasing under this government in Australia at the moment. When it comes to social indicators, we're going backwards on those as well. We've all seen what has come out of the aged-care royal commission: vulnerable elderly Australians have been abused, the aged-care waiting list has ballooned and people have died waiting for aged-care packages in this country. When it comes to the NBN, Australia ranks 61st in the world for download speeds. That's something to be proud of, isn't it? We're 61st in the world when it comes to the speed of our internet, and it has fallen year after year after year under this government. In business investment, a key thing is research and development spending. Guess where that has gone under this government? In 2013, it was 2.1 per cent of GDP; it's now 1.79 per cent of GDP.

Under this government, Australia has gone backwards in every single economic indicator. I don't know what world those opposite are living in. You can't come into this chamber and congratulate yourself for business investment when it has actually fallen under your government.

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