Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

I find it extraordinary in this debate that the Liberals can't even come in and defend their own motion and that they've kicked it off to their junior coalition partner, the Nationals, to defend. I guess they know it's a bit of a joke. Maybe it came from the shadow Treasurer's office: 'Quick—let's get up and make a motion about this.' The motion has been really deceptive in the way in which it's been put forward and it's really quite misleading, because, as we have said on this side and as everybody knows—all the leading economists are saying this—that dip that we had in productivity was mostly on their watch. It was in the lead-up to the last election. It was for that June quarter in 2022, which, of course, is retrospective. So it was actually on their watch that we had that dip. As speakers on my side have demonstrated, there are a number of factors as to why.

I want to touch on a couple of the contributions that we've had from those opposite. First is the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. The whole purpose of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is to make our water resources more productive. If you actually wanted to get on board with productivity, you would know that in the Murray-Darling Basin it is about tapping into the plan, tapping into that Commonwealth support to help farmers use their water more productively. The entire plan is about productivity. The member for Casey's contribution was basically a personal spray about the Treasurer and the Prime Minister. I thought the member for Casey was better than that. All he did was to have a spray at the Prime Minister and the Treasurer.

The speaker before him, the member for Riverina, in classic style, got up and had a rant about how great the regions are and how bad the Labor Party is. As a member for a regional area, I do know how hard our local businesses and workers are working. Mr Deputy Speaker, I can tell you what they say is really hurting productivity growth. It is the lack of skilled workers, which is something that happened under the watch of those opposite, who did not provide the supply chain of skilled workers that we require. In some businesses it's a lack of any workers. They don't have enough staff to open for the extra hours which would improve their productivity. It is the collapse of enterprise bargaining under those opposite, the number of agreements that stalled in Fair Work and could not get approved. Let's remember the whole foundation of enterprise bargaining. It was about productivity gains and wages growth. Set up by former Prime Minister Paul Keating when he was Treasurer, the whole idea of reforming industrial relations back then, in the late nineties, was about offsetting wages growth with productivity gains. The enterprise bargaining system stalled, almost collapsed, under those opposite when they were in government, and we're seeing the impact on productivity.

Supply chains are another issue that has been raised. Again that was on their watch. We are still feeling the impact of not having the supplies we need in this country to help productivity. We've had the experience of electricians being told, 'Stay at home; you don't have work this week,' because they don't have the supplies needed to get the homes built. They're still waiting on supplies that are stuck in transit. We've had people in our hospital system have appointments cancelled because there aren't enough supplies to perform certain procedures. This didn't happen just in the last 12 months; this happened under the previous government's watch. We are working to clean this up.

What else are we doing to help clean up the mess of those opposite? We are tackling the skills deficit and the worker deficit. We are skilling up people by offering them free TAFE opportunities so that businesses can get the skilled workers they need. We've introduced cheaper child care, which is about making it possible for mums and dads—most times it's the mum—to return to work for a fourth or fifth day each week. Child care became unaffordable. It became cheaper for mum to stay at home and mind the kids on that fourth or fifth day than to return to work. That is what cheaper child care is about—it's about unlocking productivity potential by getting those skilled women back into the workforce sooner.

These are just a couple of the things we're doing. We're also fixing the NBN by finishing the job, by building the NBN that's needed. The National Reconstruction Fund is all about improvements in productivity in manufacturing. We're fixing the bargaining system and getting bargaining back on track. This is a topic where I wish I had another five minutes, Mr Deputy Speaker, because there's a lot to say about improving productivity.

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