Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. What challenges to improving Australia’s productivity confronted the government when it took office? Is the government’s approach to addressing these challenges achieving support?

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hindmarsh for his question. It is instructive, if you want to understand the challenges facing Australia’s economy in the medium term, to look back to the time when this government took office. We had experienced in this country 10 interest rate rises in a row under the stewardship of a government that had promised to keep interest rates at record lows, and over several years the Reserve Bank had warned Australians on no less than 20 occasions about capacity constraints in the Australian economy, in our skills capabilities and in our infrastructure, all of which were putting upward pressure on interest rates, both short and long term. It is also instructive to recall that in the middle of a mining boom we inherited a budget with settings for spending growth at five per cent in real terms and all kinds of extraordinary spending horrors, ranging from $457 million being spent over 16 months on government advertising and the Regional Partnerships scandal to smaller and more spectacular rorts like $350,000 being committed to subsidise the private gift of an ornate carriage to the Queen by an ordinary Australian citizen.

During that period Labor consistently warned about the need for Australia to lift its game on productivity, to lift its game on infrastructure and to lift its game on skills, and from the moment we took office we have been resolutely focused on these challenges, firmly focused on the holy grail of reviving Australia’s productivity performance. It is true that that challenge has been complicated by the global financial crisis and by the global recession that has battered Australia in recent months, but we have never taken our eye off that challenge. All of the government’s primary efforts in the economic sphere, including our stimulus strategy, are ultimately directed to that goal, to nation-building for the future—huge investments in road, rail and ports; a big program of investment in higher education; a big injection of funding into early childhood, into schools, into technical education; a very large new program in innovation and research; and, of course, an ambitious regulatory reform agenda to deliver a seamless national economy by harmonising economic regulation across Australia.

Unfortunately, instead of learning from their mistakes in government—on productivity, on exports, on infrastructure, on skills—the opposition seem intent on moving into weirder and weirder economic positions. Yesterday we heard the member for Sturt declare that the global economic crisis is over, and today we have heard the member for Fadden state that every government in the world apart from Australia’s is winding back its stimulus strategy. They do appear to be living in a parallel universe. Pretty soon they will be denying that the global financial crisis even happened. As well as climate change deniers on the other side, we will have GFC deniers as well. The GFC will be something that was faked in a Hollywood studio—like the moon landing! That is where they are heading. That is where they are moving.

For those in the community who may be tempted to question the Liberal Party’s capabilities on economic issues, for those who are prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt as to whether they are a viable alternative government and not just behaving like a minority in the Senate, I would urge you to ask them a few questions, Mr Speaker, and they are questions of this kind—

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, what’s going on?

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted that the member for North Sydney has dragged himself away from his twittering for a few moments. We know he has got an attention span problem, but it would be good if he actually paid attention to the parliament rather than sitting there twittering all day. We should ask the opposition: when they were in government why was it that they inherited productivity running on average, over five years, at above three per cent and when they left government the figure was one per cent? Why on their watch did Australia slip way behind most of the developed world on broadband? Why under their stewardship was Australia the only developed nation in the world where public investment in higher education went backwards? Why over their time in office was no effort made to get uniform national regulatory arrangements in occupational health and safety, in trade licences, in consumer laws and all those other areas where they did absolutely nothing? We know the answer to these questions. The answer is that they have learnt nothing from their time in office. The government is committed to that holy grail of productivity improvement, to fixing productivity in this country, and that is what all of our economic efforts are directed to.