Peter Slipper (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for North Sydney proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The urgent need of the Government to protect the jobs of Australian workers.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

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

The government really is concerned about just one job; it is not concerned about the jobs of everyday Australians. Let us look at its economic record. It promised jobs, jobs, jobs in last year's budget but, for the first time in 20 years, there was no jobs growth. The Prime Minister in her speech to the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce said that employers would be looking at changes in the economy, which she described as 'growing pains'. Last year the government promised increased workforce participation, but in fact participation fell. At the beginning of last week it promised lower interest rates for workers, as the Treasurer appeared on the Insiders program and suggested that banks are hugely profitable and should be in the business of passing on any impending full interest rate cut. So at the beginning of last week Australians were expecting interest rate cuts and at the end of last week ended up with interest rate rises. It promised bank competition so that people could shop around if they were getting an unfair deal from a bank. Yet, under the Labor Party, the Big Four have now gone from 75 per cent of market share to 86 per cent of market share. The government promised budget surpluses over time. They say they are fiscally responsible, yet we are still waiting for the Labor Party to deliver the biggest fiscal consolidation since the early 1950s—a $38 billion turnaround—which they say will deliver, not promise, a budget surplus in 2013. We will not know it until September 2013. They promise that productivity will grow, yet productivity stalls. Out of all of this comes the fact that Australians are facing higher everyday costs of living—and they are at the hand of the government—be it the carbon tax, flood levies or the fact that the government have introduced 19 new taxes since they were elected in 2007.

To compound all of that, the government are leaving Australians with a litany of waste—the waste of the BER that they were so proud of today. Over the last four years, we have seen $900 cheques go to dead people; we have seen the most expensive per square metre construction jobs ever in the education system—thanks to the failed BER. We have seen pink batts go into people's homes causing house fires and deaths. And not only that, but the continuation of the waste lies in the fact that, even in the Labor Party's current jobs programs, as was revealed more recently, an infrastructure jobs program cost $150 million and the Labor Party did not create one job.

The challenge for Australia today is that the economy is undertaking its own structural change; but, during that change, Australians are yearning for confidence. They are yearning for consistency in government policy. They want the government to make the transition easier, not harder. The best evidence of the incompetence of the Labor Party in this area is in their denial of the impact of the carbon tax on the aluminium industry. As the Treasury modelling reveals, the impact of the carbon tax on the output of the aluminium industry is over 60 per cent. Even the statement from Alcoa in relation to Port Henry identifies that the carbon tax is going to increase its cost burdens.

When the government cries crocodile tears about jobs, whether it be at Holden or Toyota, look at the dead hand of the Labor government there. The carbon tax itself will increase the cost of a motor vehicle by $400. Our motor vehicles in Australia compete directly with imported cars made in countries that do not have a carbon tax that imposes a $400 extra cost on a motor vehicle, let alone our car exports trying to compete in overseas markets, where industry is trying to forge new opportunities, particularly in Asia, but where our cars end up being punished at the production line for the incompetence of this government.

The first thing you need for the stability of the household budget is a job. You need regular income. You need to have the opportunity to carefully plan with confidence the family budget going forward—the burden of the mortgage, the burden of school fees and the burden of healthcare costs. At every point, the Labor Party makes it harder. At the moment there is nothing more pressing than the government's own decision to increase the cost of private health care by abolishing the rebate for more than two million Australian families. Out of all of this, what does the Prime Minister say? She dismisses the job losses across Australia over the last few weeks as growing pains: Westpac 400 jobs nationally; Royal Bank of Scotland, 200 jobs; ANZ, 1,000 jobs.

In the last 24 hours, the Labor Party have spent far more time talking about the job of the Prime Minister than they have about the 1,000 workers at ANZ who are being turfed out. They are spending more time talking about the job of the Prime Minister than they are about the 100 jobs at Holden, the 350 jobs at Toyota that have gone, the 155 jobs at BHP, the 190 jobs at Reckitt, the 70 jobs at Manildra, the 150 jobs at Norsk, the 100 jobs at Tomago, the 50 jobs at Thales, the 31 jobs at Don and up to 1,000 jobs worldwide that are going from Macquarie Bank. On top of this, we are seeing the threat of further job losses at Alcoa but also at Kell and Rigby and at Sleep City, as revealed today on the front of the Sydney Morning Herald. These are working Australians—the working Australians that the Labor Party feigns concern about. If they were really concerned about working Australians, they would be talking about how they can get these people back to work, how they can deliver the smooth transition to the new economy that we recognise is occurring. Unfortunately, the government are making this harder, not easier.

I want to compare the Labor Party's record on jobs growth to that of the coalition. When we came into government in 1996, we inherited an unemployment rate of 8.7 per cent. We more than halved that. When I finished as minister for employment in 2007, we left a legacy unemployment rate of 4.1 per cent—in fact, under the Howard government we even got it down to where there was a three in front of it. In February 2008, unemployment reached its low of four per cent, the lowest in 20 years. Labor inherited from the coalition strong participation rates and the strongest employment growth in a generation, and then they blew it.

Of course, the challenge of unemployment or underemployment grows with a deterioration in the cost of living. When it comes to interest rates, the Treasurer believes, for example, that the cash rate is what people pay. I know the Treasurer does not have a mortgage so he is not familiar with what people actually have to pay, but there is no-one in Australia who pays 4.25 per cent on their home mortgage, which is the Reserve Bank cash rate. He keeps talking about the Reserve Bank cash rate. What he has to do is look at what people actually pay. After the Treasurer was leading Australians to believe that there would be a full interest rate cut at the beginning of last week, at the end of that week ANZ customers saw their variable home loan increased to 7.36 per cent, not the 4.25 per cent that he keeps referring to. Westpac customers have gone to 7.46 per cent; Commonwealth Bank customers to 7.41 per cent; National Australia Bank customers to 7.31 per cent. Bendigo and Adelaide banks have increased rates from 7.3 per cent to 7.45 per cent. The Treasurer says, 'Shop around,' but the four major banks now control 86 per cent of the market whereas they used to have 75 per cent. There might be a whole lot of good reasons for that, including the challenging aspect of the potential failure of Bankwest. It also might be the case that others were under funding pressures. But the bottom line is you cannot shop around if the competition is not a better deal.

What is the greatest contributor to the increase that people are facing? It is that the banks have to get more and more finance from offshore. That reveals the Labor Party's state of mind. When you have a government that is borrowing $100 million a day, and almost 70 per cent of that has to be borrowed from overseas, that is in direct competition with the banks themselves. The banks have lots of sources of money, including pretty expensive deposits at the moment, but when they have to go into the capital markets there is an 800-pound gorilla right next to them competing for the same limited money. That is the Australian government trying to fund its $38 billion deficit—an Australian government that is increasing gross debt to near the debt limit of $250 billion; an Australian government that is completely indifferent to the impact of its debt funded National Broadband Network and the impact that is having on the cost of funds for everyday Australians.

The government's own hand confuses the market and makes it harder. The government claims that its own banking reforms made it easier and not harder to shop around. Yet the government's own Treasury advice released under freedom of information stated:

Banning mortgage exit fees will remove a fee that is designed to address the legitimate cost of offering a mortgage product … As such, mortgage providers will need to find alternative ways of covering their costs … increasing interest rates … increasing other fees …

We warned about this. We warned in this chamber that the government's own hand would have a negative impact on competition and a negative impact on interest rates. We warned about it and the government did not heed the warning. Treasury went on to say:

As exit fees are generally higher for credit unions and building societies this measure may adversely affect these institutions more than the major banks and therefore reduce the ability of credit unions and building societies to effectively compete.

So not only have we seen the majors get more market share but we have seen the government by its own incompetent hand make it harder for credit unions and building societies to compete.

Do you remember the days when the Treasurer was running around saying he would create the fifth pillar in banking? What happened to that? Where is this fifth pillar? Where is it? Is it in the despatch box? Is it under the table? Where is the fifth pillar that is meant to be the great saviour of competition in the banking sector?

I will tell you what we look at, as people that understand the challenges of everyday Australians. We look at what people actually have to pay. The standard variable mortgage rate under the coalition was on average lower than it has been for Labor—even when the Labor Party had the most significant drop in the cash rate for many years. Under the coalition the standard variable mortgage rate averaged 7.26 per cent; under Labor it is 7.51 per cent. That makes a difference.

What is more telling is our beloved small business being hit. The average small business unsecured overdraft rate under the coalition averaged 8.89 per cent; under the Labor Party, 10.23 per cent.

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The spread is getting wider.

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

The spread is getting wider and the challenge is getting greater. The government stands up here and says it cares about small business; yet what we are seeing is the challenge for small business getting greater. The challenge is getting harder. For so many small businesses, that overdraft matters. They often go so far as to secure their own home to try and keep their business afloat. And this indifferent Labor Party does not care.

It does not care about its own Fair Work laws and their impact on small business. It does not care about the fact that inconsistency in regulations makes it harder for small business. It does not care about the fact that there is inconsistency in its interest rate message—it sends a confusing signal when people start the week with an interest rate cut and finish the week with an interest rate rise. It sends an inconsistent message to small business when the government says it is fiscally responsible and it is careful with taxpayers' money and then goes and sends $900 cheques to dead people, or it goes and wastes money on pink batts, school halls or on billiard table references committees. It wastes money right across the nation. This is becoming symbolic of what the Labor Party really is—a party that does not understand the aspirations of Australians. It does not understand the aspirations of small business. It does not care about the workers and it does not care about the economy.

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs ) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In May 2010, I met a young bloke called Joshua at a jobs expo I was running up on the Central Coast when I was the Parliamentary Secretary for Employment. Joshua was a young bloke who had left school when he was 16 and he had never had a job in four years. He got a job that day at the jobs expo working at the Ali Baba shop in Westfield Tuggerah Shopping Centre. He got a start, after being unemployed for four years. I remember talking to his mum a few weeks after that. She told me that he was a different boy, a different person, after he had got a job after being unemployed for four years. I checked up on Joshua just the other day. He has now moved out of home and he has got another job working full time as a security guard. So he is on his way. This is just one story, just one job. Since this government has come to office we have created 700,000 jobs, 700,000 stories just like that.

The member for North Sydney made some comparisons. He invited us to compare the record of this government and that of the former government, and I am happy to take up the challenge. The fact is that this government has seen 700,000 more people getting a job than when the Liberal Party was last in power. Look at the topic of income tax. Income taxes are lower now than they were under the Liberal Party. Someone who is on $50,000 a year is now paying almost 20 per cent less in tax than they were when we came to office. The member for North Sydney also talked about interest rates. Interest rates are also lower now than when the Liberals left office.

Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is not true.

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs ) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It certainly is true.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Goldstein does not have the call. The minister will be heard in silence.

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs ) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The cash rate would have to go up 10 times before interest rates could get back to where the Liberal Party left them. If you want proof regarding what interest rates look like now compared with what they looked like under the Liberal Party, you need go no further than my electorate. In my electorate four years ago, when the member for Goldstein was a minister, 60 families a month had their homes repossessed. That is something like three families a day losing their homes. Today, with interest rates lower, with cash rates lower, that number is in single figures—single figure numbers of people are having their homes repossessed, compared with the numbers when the member for Goldstein was a minister, when the Liberal Party was last in office. These are the facts.

The Australian economy is now stronger, compared with the rest of the world, than ever before. The strength of the Australian dollar is an indication of that. For the first time in our history we have a AAA credit rating from all three credit agencies—something the great Liberal Party never achieved. We are also a fairer country than we were four years ago. Four years ago more than a million workers had their wages or their entitlements cut by the Liberal Party's Work Choices legislation. We got rid of that. Four years ago pensioners received $148 less per fortnight than they do now. And four years ago there was no such thing as paid parental leave. The Leader of the Opposition said at the time that it would happen over his dead body. Well, it did happen, and now new mothers get 18 weeks of paid leave at the minimum wage. The next big reform to build a fairer country is the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which will provide lifetime care and support for the disabled—the sort of thing that only a Labor government would ever do.

All of this is because of the action this government has taken. That is the difference a Labor government makes—more jobs, a stronger economy and a fairer country. That is the story of the last four years. They would have been a very different four years if the Liberal Party had won the 2007 election. There are at least two things we can be certain of: they would not have got rid of Work Choices and they would not have taken the action we did to stop the impact of the global financial crisis. In other words, we would have had Work Choices and we would have had a recession. We would have had higher unemployment and lower wages. And the Liberal Party has the gall to come in here and have a debate about jobs.

If we had taken the action that the Liberal Party proposed, unemployment in Australia would now be more like it is in the United States. Unemployment in my electorate in Western Sydney would have been something like 15 or 16 per cent, and a generation of people across the country would have suffered. It would have taken us five or maybe 10 years to get unemployment back to where it is now.

It is worth remembering what the opposition leader said in his first major economic speech, a speech made a couple of years ago called 'Economic fundamentals'. This is what he said:

The economic stimulus wasn't necessary to strengthen Australia's economy at a time of global recession.

This is the man who expects the people of Australia to put him in charge of a $1.4 trillion economy, and in his first major speech on the economy he says that the stimulus was not necessary to protect jobs, the stimulus was not necessary to avoid going into recession, the stimulus was not necessary to protect Australia's economy.

This is not the party of Howard and Costello anymore. It is now led by a man whom Peter Costello says he would not trust on economic matters—and with good reason. One day they say they are going to deliver a surplus; the next day they say that cannot. Last year they promised tax cuts in their first term—we all remember that—and now they say that is not possible. A few months ago they admitted they had a $70 billion black hole in their costings; now they are denying it. It is all over the shop.

Mr Fletcher interjecting—

Mr Frydenberg interjecting—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Bradfield and the member for Kooyong will listen in silence.

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs ) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I tell you this: Peter Costello never would have made the sorts of mistakes we are seeing from the member for Goldstein, the member for North Sydney or the Leader of the Opposition. No wonder they were so keen to get Senator Sinodinos into the parliament: he is someone from the Howard years who knows something about economics.

Mr Frydenberg interjecting—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Kooyong!

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs ) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week the Leader of the Opposition, in his party room, said that every time we talk about jobs or the economy they are going to talk about 'carbon tax'. In other words, the scare campaign continues. Let us have a look at this scare campaign. Remember those bold predictions we had last year, that it was going to 'wipe Whyalla off the map'? Or that it was going to be the 'economic death' of the steel industry? It was all nonsense—not real. My favourite one—the one I always remember—came in June last year, when the Leader of the Opposition said that the carbon price would be 'the death of the coal industry'. The best way to find out if this is the truth or not is to follow the money; look at the investments that have been made in the coal industry since we announced the carbon price or since the Leader of the Opposition made those statements. Has it gone up or has it gone down? According to the Bureau of Statistics, in the year to September spending on coal exploration has jumped 167 per cent. But it gets better than that.

Mr Frydenberg interjecting—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Kooyong might be going if he is not careful.

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs ) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I told the House last year, one in six members of the opposition have bought shares in coal or resource companies since we announced the carbon price. It is worth the House remembering who those members are: the member for Wentworth, Senator Adams, Senator Cash, Senator Fisher, Senator Humphries, the member for Stirling, the member for Brisbane, the member for Flynn, Senator Ronaldson, the member for Fadden, Senator Johnston and the member for Kooyong. They all bought shares in coal or resource companies after the Leader of the Opposition said that the industry was going to die. The member for Kooyong is a pretty smart man. When you look at this list you think they are either stupid or they just do not believe what the Leader of the Opposition is saying. As Deep Throat said to Woodward, 'Follow the money.' Follow the money and you find the truth.

It gets better than that, because a very interesting document was lodged on the last sitting day of last year. Senator Sinodinos, the new senator for New South Wales, lodged his statement of registrable interests. Senator Sinodinos is an impressive man. He was John Howard's policy brain, his right-hand man. He came out of Treasury; he understands government; he also understands the private sector. If there was ever anyone to test the argument of the Leader of the Opposition that carbon pricing is going to kill the coal industry, it is Senator Sinodinos. What does Senator Sinodinos's return tell us? Like his colleagues—like the member for Kooyong—he also owns shares in the resources sector. He also owns shares in a coal company. But that is not all. A month after the Leader of the Opposition told the country that this would be the death of the coal industry, Senator Sinodinos became the boss of a coal company. He became the chairman of Blackwood Coal, an Australian coal company based in Sydney.

While the brawn of the Liberal Party is running around the country saying, 'This is going to kill the coal industry', you have the brains of the Liberal Party becoming the boss of a coal company. It just goes to show what a bunch of hypocrites the Liberal Party really is. You have the boss of the party out there trying to scare everyone by telling them it is going to be the death of the coal industry, whilst you have all the rest of them out there buying shares in coal companies. And the smartest one of all is running a coal company. Follow the money; follow the money and you find the truth. It shows this opposition leader for what he is. This Leader of the Opposition's answer to everything is either 'No' or it is 'No idea'.

Mr O'Dowd interjecting—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Flynn may have an interview outside if he is not careful.

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs ) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is not good enough. The people of Australia expect their government and their opposition to have plans for the future. They expect more than just a stop sign in a suit. That is what they have with this Leader of the Opposition. They need more than a dodgy scare campaign. As Senator Sinodinos has shown, if you keep crying wolf, eventually you get found out.

Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The last 13 minutes says it all. There are thousands of jobs being lost in our community and the person the government throws up to defend their management of this economy—to set out what they are doing to stop this loss of jobs that is so damaging to so many thousands of families across the country—could not even use his full 15 minutes. He did not even spend any time describing what the government is doing. No defence. We had the Prime Minister here last week urging an economic debate. Here is an economic debate. Here is an economic problem: thousands of jobs lost. What did we hear? Just a whole lot of scuttlebutt derived from Google from the member opposite. This is pathetic.

This is a classic example of why there is a crisis of confidence throughout our community. That is at the heart of the problems we are facing; it is at the heart of the job problem. It is why last year there was no net increase in jobs in the middle of a mining boom. Off goes the member for Blaxland, who did not even know that the market interest rates are different to the cash rate. No wonder this government is incompetent from an economic point of view. There is no confidence in this government amongst every Australian and amongst every business in Australia. It is evidenced by the fact that over the last 12 months savings rates amongst families have skyrocketed to plus 13 per cent of their disposable income. They are paying off the mortgage, they are paying off the plastic and they are putting money on deposit, because they are scared. They have no confidence; they have no sense of direction; they have no feel that this government is on top of its job. That is why they are saving like they never have before. They have sensed the vulnerability in our economy for 12 months, and yet this government has had a sense of complacency. It has a sense of entitlement about sitting on those benches; it has an obsession with holding onto its members' jobs and not worrying about other people's jobs. This crisis of confidence has also infected business. We have got a business sector that has not created one new net job in the last 12 months. We had a situation today where Dick Warburton, who is the Executive Chairman of Manufacturing Australia and a most experienced manufacturer, someone who has been asked by both sides of politics to assist with major policy decisions, warned that up to 400,000 Australians are in danger of losing their jobs during this year. What a chilling warning that is from someone who has got his finger on the pulse. When did you last speak to the manufacturers in some sort of serious way, other than for a photo op?

I put it to the parliament that we have a crisis of confidence and that is the reason people are saving like there is no tomorrow, the reason they are waking up at 2.30 in the morning worrying about what losing their job will mean for their mortgage payments and their ability to look after their families and the reason that business people have got lots of money on their balance sheets but are not spending or investing any of it. I put it to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that we have a Treasurer and a Prime Minister who have created this crisis of confidence. We have a Treasurer who has displayed some very special talents over the last few years. This Treasurer has taken the highest terms of trade in 140 years, a balance sheet with not an ounce of debt on it, a balance sheet with nearly $70 billion of reserves, a highly skilled workforce, a workforce which had unemployment rates at four per cent and an unprecedented and prolonged global mining boom and he has wasted it. He has taken all of that and he has wasted the boom. He wasted terms of trade at 140-year highs. He has presided over a panic reaction to the global financial crisis—$87 billion, $900 cheques, pink batts and school halls. The waste that this Treasurer has presided over is just criminal.

This Treasurer has presided over the four biggest budget deficits in our history—$167 billion. This Treasurer has now increased the spending of this government by around 40 per cent. In 2007 the budget was $262 billion. The budget for 2010-11 is expected to be $370 billion. That is an increase of almost $100 billion. This is like a household who are spending a certain amount of money and then one year decide to put on major extensions. So they have a real spike in their spending for that year. It is a bit like a stimulus for that family for one year. Then the next year, what do they do? They go back to their original level of spending. Have the government done that? Not on your nelly. They have gone up above the spike. The $87 billion is now embodied in every year's budget. They are spending it on other programs. Yet they had the gall to talk about fiscal prudence and this fastest fiscal consolidation, using mumbo jumbo words that no-one can understand when in actual fact what they are doing is hiding the great deception of a government that have spent like there is no tomorrow.

An increase of 40 per cent is $100 billion. What would be the inflation rate over the last four years? It pales in comparison, yet they try to tell us that they are fiscally responsible. No wonder we have had the four biggest budget deficits in our history. No wonder we have got a debt which is approaching $136 billion. No wonder we have got exchange rates under pressure. That $100 billion a day in the market has pushed up the price of money, which has attracted more overseas capital. Some of that exchange rate increase is directly at the door of the government, yet they wash their hands of it. They do not do anything about it. Some of the interest rate rises are a result of the government's spending, which continues.

We have got a Treasurer who is a dangerous lightweight. He is a wholly owned subsidiary of Treasury; he has not got an original thought. They say 'You jump' and he says 'How high?' On Friday I did my 76th boardroom since I got this job two years ago. I can report that the Treasurer is viewed with contempt in boardrooms across Australia. He is seen as out of his depth. He is seen as hapless and he is seen as anti business. No-one for a second believes he can sell your economic story because he has not got one. He is not up to it and he cannot fashion an economic program that is suited to the problems. The Treasurer has created a vulnerability in this economy, yet he has the gall to walk in here today and say Australia's economy walks tall—said with a sense of complacency born of ignorance. This is a Treasurer who, combined with the Prime Minister, has no vision, has no direction and cannot be trusted—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member will be careful with his terminology about members in this place.

Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thought I was being quite judicious.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I get to decide if you are being judicious and I do not think you are.

Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, Madam Deputy Speaker, you can decide. The Prime Minister is a leader with no authority. She is a leader who is just consumed with looking after her job and not the jobs of thousands and thousands of Australians who are out of work now or are in jeopardy this year. With all of the nonsense decisions—the live cattle exports, the attack on private health insurance and the culture war that is now starting to be introduced into this parliament for the first time in about 20 years—this is an incompetent, ignorant, dysfunctional government and it needs to go. (Time expired)

Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have to say, after seeing the MPI from the member for North Sydney, it is a little rich for the coalition to be having a debate about protecting the jobs of Australian workers. Just looking around the chamber, I see that there are not that many members here who were here under the Howard-Costello government. And there are probably not that many members here who, when they had the opportunity to look after Australian workers, went and saw how that mob went about it. I actually was here. I did see the ravages of Work Choices and what it did to my local community. I did see people who were being paid the award minimum rates who, for the first time in the history of this country, could be paid below those minimum rates. I did see that mums and dads trying to make ends meet just could not withstand that sort of pressure. And, like the member for Goldstein, I also had the opportunity to go and visit boardrooms at that stage. I went and asked a board at a particular company—quite a large company that was operating in my electorate; and they had a number of their overseas representatives there—'Why are you doing this? The people out there are not wealthy; they are on minimum rates. The courts have decided these are the lowest rates you can pay them; why are you trying to get them to sign an individual contract for lower rates?' And their answer, in a very distinct American slur, was, 'It was your government'—referring to the federal parliament—'that gave us permission to do it.'

So, in other words, if we want to make it okay to go out and slash and burn, and pay below the minimum rates of pay, that is on the head of this parliament. That is what the Howard government did when they had the opportunity to look after Australian workers. I saw the ravages of that, as it played out in my electorate. I saw the real contest that occurred out there. I saw workers going on strike, workers like Warren Small and people from Esselte. These people were paid absolute minimum wages, and they were out for nine weeks to try and bring attention to that. So don't come in here and lecture us about preserving Australian jobs, when you had all that opportunity—12 years—to do something and your crowning achievement of looking after Australian workers was Work Choices. And let's face it: everyone knows that, in the party room, they are under pressure to bring that back again. This is about having some 'incentives' in the Australian economy. I tell you what: it is not about looking after Australian jobs.

Another thing that was very interesting, when we go through the speeches from the other side, was the member for Goldstein waxing on about interest rates. I was also in this House when we counted seven interest rates rises in a row! I was here when we saw the tally just keep going up. I was one of those paying a mortgage and watching the impact on my mortgage. So to come in here and try and lecture people about the management of this economy! Well, they had their opportunity and, in the 12 years that they had it, the tally sheet did not come out in their favour.

But what really concerns me, and those who have sat through this debate, is to again be told about the 'wasteful spending', as they call it, on pink batts or school halls, and their attempts to demean the efforts that were made to protect the Australian economy from the worst financial shocks in 60 years. Not once in this whole debate has the global financial crisis been referred to. Not once has Australia's position in coming out of that global financial crisis been referred to, nor the fact that the International Monetary Fund, with respect to our handling of the economy through those shocks, said that we were probably the best economy to emerge out of the global financial crisis and we handled the challenges better than most economies around the globe. That is not an accurate quote, but the international representatives of the International Monetary Fund certainly used words to that effect.

The fact is that Labor did invest in school halls. But what we also did was invest in science blocks, in language centres, in higher education, in school partnerships. We invested money not only in bricks and mortar and in building schools for today but n the development of skills for young people for their futures—all those things those opposite want to demean and just refer to under generic titles like 'school halls'. We are the ones who have doubled investment in education. In the 12 years that they were in power they took billions out of the education budget. It is something that we refer to continually because, what they decided to do was to take that away, strip all the money that they did not want to spend—and, sure, they had a $22 billion surplus, but they did it by not spending on education, by cutting $1 billion out of health and also by not spending on infrastructure development in this country. All of those things I have referred to are great criticisms of the former government, quite frankly. It is not just the balance sheet you need to look at here: look at interest rates, and at where they were when we took over; look at the issue of jobs, where at least we have returned fairness and decency in the workplace.

And they have the gall to mention small business. Only recently, with much fight, we were successful in establishing the mining tax. Don't forget: one of the aspects to the mining tax, apart from it being the leverage for increasing the superannuation of Australian workers from nine to 12 per cent, is reducing company tax on small business down to 28 per cent. Those people over there voted against that. They are committed to actually increasing the tax on small business. That is what they want to do—they want to make sure that Gina Rinehart, Twiggy Forrest and their other mates at the top end of the pole in the mining sector get a tax reduction and do not pay their fair share of tax. We actually want to ensure that the benefits of Australia's booming resource sector is felt throughout our economy—not just by a few but by all. I mentioned the global financial crisis, but one of the things that has certainly impacted more recently is the Australian car industry. In Fowler I do not have a car industry but I do know the strategic importance of maintaining a car industry. I know that there are probably only 12 countries in the world that have the strategic capacity to manufacture a motor vehicle. If you lose that, it is not just the fact that you may not be selling motor vehicles or exporting motor vehicles but the fact that you will not have the skill sets—and for all those other trades that are not simply for the manufacturing but for the componentry. All those matters come together and are symptomatic of our being in a highly skilled economy.

We are one of the lucky countries. There are about 12 countries, as I say, around the globe that can manufacture a motor vehicle. We are one of them. We have those skill sets. We need to ensure that we retain them. One thing I am absolutely convinced of is that if we lose motor vehicle manufacturing in this country we will never, ever get it back. You cannot re-establish it. It will be just taken over. If we lose those skill sets we will never get them back.

What has been the response? As I said, I am a person who does not have motor vehicle manufacturing in my electorate or my state, but I know the importance of it. I would have thought that so would the opposition. Many of them actually come from a state that has motor vehicle manufacturing. And they are going to cut by half the investment in the motor vehicle industries.

Motor vehicle industries around the globe operate in only two ways. Either they are subsidised or alternatively they are restricted, highly protected by tariffs. We are trying to provide the incentive to develop those skill sets, maintain this industry and keep it viable. It is a good export industry for us and it showcases our skills and shows that we can do these things. The downstream aspects of motor vehicle manufacturing, the componentry and everything that goes with that, are such that people are not just supplying the motor vehicle industry; they are supplying elsewhere into our manufacture based economy. Those people too would be in jeopardy. But the opposition are just walking away from it.

They are not walking away because they do not believe it. They are walking away from this because there is a $70 billion black hole that the member for North Sydney has said they have to fill now, because of where they need to cut and slash to make their budgetary aspirations. This is just taking too much of a chance.

This government does have a track record when confronting a crisis. It showed it in respect of the global financial crisis. It can be trusted to invest wisely in developing jobs. It has shown it in protecting Australian jobs with the amendments to Fair Work Australia. This is in direct contrast to what those opposite did when they had the opportunity during 12 long years of the Howard government. (Time expired)

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is an urgent need for the government to protect the jobs of Australian workers. Workers and the families they support across the nation are hurting. They are hurting because Labor does not grasp the everyday reality of just how hard it is for long-suffering families to make ends meet. They are hurting because Labor is persisting with its plan to impose an economy-wide carbon tax, the biggest in the world, which will push prices up across the board, especially for the everyday essentials: electricity, groceries and petrol. They are hurting because they know that, more than likely, they have to put up with a government beholden to the Greens and their radical, unrepresentative ideals until possibly later next year when the next election is due. An election cannot come soon enough. We know it. The Australian people know it.

Labor cares more about political spin and retaining power at any cost than it does about the things which matter most to the man and woman on the street. That is palpably obvious to anyone with only the remotest interest in politics. Workers and families have every reason to be scornful of a Prime Minister who dismisses job losses such as those already announced this year from the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd, BHP, Don Smallgoods, Holden, the Macquarie Group, Manildra, Norsk Hydro, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Reckitt Benckiser, Thales, Tomago Aluminium, Toyota and Westpac and threats to 600 Alcoa workers as 'growing pains'. The best thing the government can do to protect Australian jobs is scrap the carbon tax.

More than 4,000 Australian jobs have been lost already this year, and it is only the third week of February. Four thousand jobs are gone, and it is only the third week of the second month of the year. What a disgrace. And what is the Prime Minister's response? 'Growing pains.' Other popular terms trotted out by the Gillard apparatchiks for the fact that they have bled the nation's coffers dry and are destroying confidence and ruining prosperity are 'transitioning', 'structural readjustment' and, as we heard from the Prime Minister in question time today, 'days of change', 'days of pressure'. This is 'moving forward' the Labor way, which is code for one step forward and three steps back.

Families have every reason to be angry about a Prime Minister whose office engages in dirty tricks such as the Australia Day affray, when what the Australian public so desperately needs is leadership—real leadership. It is a matter of trust. At the moment and for most of the four years since Labor took over, certainly for the entire time the current Prime Minister has been in the role, that is the major thing where the government has failed dismally: building trust.

The government harps on about the coalition opposing its policies, about being negative. It is, I must say, difficult to be positive about a government which wastes taxpayers' money like there is no tomorrow, which continues to borrow money like it does not have to pay it back, ever, and which puts a higher priority on the 24-hour media cycle than it does on providing meaningful and lasting assistance to workers worried about job security—to struggling families.

It is not the opposition's job to give carte blanche approval to a reckless and frivolous government which has no grasp of the meaning of the terms 'budget surplus' and 'fiscal responsibility'. The coalition's role is to hold the government to account, to ensure, as much as possible, that taxpayers' dollars are being prudently, responsibly and wisely spent and to show the public that we are a worthy alternative administration if and when we are given the opportunity—hopefully soon.

We are fulfilling those objectives, admirably and competently. Mums and dads know we care about what is important to them: the cost of living, being able to afford to give their children a good education and a decent holiday, affordable interest rates to enable them to pay off their home, and job security. Workers know we are committed to ensuring they have a future.

Small business, the engine room of the Australian economy and invariably family owned and operated, knows that the coalition has policies to provide welcome relief from the high-taxing, high-compliance, red-tape-enforcing rabble opposite. That is because we understand farms. We understand small business. Many of those on our side have run them successfully. We know what it takes to make the books balance and to work hard to keep the doors open, the paddocks cropped and the workers employed. We have the acumen, daring, entrepreneurship and vision to make things happen, to profit and to produce, which is in direct contrast to those opposite, many of whom are ex-union hacks who worked their way up through the party system.

Getting your hands dirty in Australia used to be about rolling up your sleeves and producing something. It was about using a bit of elbow grease and sweat, not making phone calls on Australia Day to cause a commotion to gain cheap political points. Robert Menzies talked of the forgotten families. 'Black Jack' McEwen felt that nothing was more important to Australians than jobs. Let us start to do things the Menzies way and the McEwen way, not the Sussex Street way.

When Julia Gillard gained the top job by knifing a first-term Prime Minister in the back she said Labor had lost its way. However, as Janet Albrechtsen wrote in the Australian just last Wednesday:

The Rudd government didn't lose its way. The Labor Party lost its way, and well before Rudd became leader.

She continued:

Choosing Rudd as leader was a symptom of a deeper existential problem: the party that started out in 1891 imbued with working class values now attracts votes from urban elites who think they understand the working class because they drank VB or Tooheys at university.

Kevin Rudd might have lost the way but, as the Nationals leader has said many times in the past, if that is so then Julia Gillard lost the map—in fact, she has lost the atlas.

Workers know how important it is to live within their means: you cannot spend more than you earn. It is a shame the government cannot adopt the same thinking. All the while, families are bearing the brunt. In my Riverina electorate there is so much despair and uncertainty among families in irrigation communities while Labor makes a mess of the Murray-Darling Basin process. Investment is on hold, real estate prices have fallen, businesses are not hiring staff, those with a job are rightly concerned and farmers, who just want to be able to do what they do best by growing food to feed this nation, do not know if they will have water in the future. Water security equals jobs in regional Australia. Water security equals food availability. Water means life. It means everything.

Farmers are among this nation's hardest workers. They are among this nation's most unrecognised. Indeed, in this the Australian Year of the Farmer it is interesting to reflect on just how many times our Prime Minister has mentioned farmers in this the 43rd Parliament. She has talked about carbon farming, wind farms, farms damaged by the Queensland floods and even Pat Farmer, the former Liberal member for Macarthur and indefatigable Pole-to-Pole marathon runner. But how many times has the Prime Minister praised farmers and the fantastic job they do in the national interest despite the vagaries of the weather, the volatility of markets, the high Australian dollar and the requirement for them to put in more and more hours for less and less return? Not once. That is because the Prime Minister and Labor neither know nor, worse, care about farmers.

The fact that not one Labor cabinet minister lives in regional Australia is no excuse for the government to show such contempt and complete disregard for our hardworking farmers, who are the best in the world. Workers and families throughout regional Australia and, indeed, in the western suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, many of whom are the working poor, are doing it tough, and federal Labor has not helped, is not helping and will not help these good, fair dinkum, true blue Australians with its Greens tinged policies and its unnecessary, unwanted and undemocratic carbon tax.

This is the worst possible time to be hitting the Australian economy, our workers, our farmers and our families with the world's biggest carbon tax. With Europe in financial meltdown, uncertainty in the United States of America and our own debt and deficit levels far greater than they ought to be, now is not the time to be imposing an economy-wide carbon tax which will cost many Australians their jobs. It will not decrease the sea levels and it will not decrease the temperature.

Every day newspapers report more job losses. A thousand domestic jobs will go from ANZ Bank, about four per cent of its local workforce. Banking is one of the most profitable sectors at present, so if it is shedding jobs at that rate you just know a carbon tax from 1 July is not appropriate. While the big companies, which Labor would probably label as 'big polluters', are cutting staff, small businesses across the country, especially in regional areas, are laying off workers—one here, two there. These cuts do not make front page news in the Australian or the Sydney Morning Herald, but they all add up.

In reference to the economic debate, the Prime Minister said during the first question time for 2012, 'Bring it on.' Yes, bring it on—the economic debate as well as an election—and sooner rather than later, for the sake of Australian workers and families, for the sake of Australian jobs.

Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with some pleasure that I rise today to address this matter of public importance proposed by the member for North Sydney. I must say upfront that Tony Abbott and his economic team should stop trashing the Australian economy. They are trashing the Australian economy in every forum that they can. The reality is that we have a strong plan and a strong vision for the Australian economy. It is an economy that produces high-paying, high-skilled jobs. Tony Abbott and his economic team are trashing the Australian economy at every chance that they get.

Let us have a look at the record. Let us introduce some facts into this debate. The reality is that when we came to office in 2007 Australia and the world economy faced a depression set of circumstances. The Australian economy was at risk of going into recession, following Europe and the United States. Australia, the Australian government and the Australian Labor Party stepped up with an economic stimulus plan to protect jobs and the Australian economy. And guess what the Liberal Party did. They said no. Guess what Tony Abbott did. He could not even be bothered to go along and vote—he was too busy sleeping. That is how much he cares about the Australian economy. We care about jobs, we have a plan for this nation and we are taking steps to build a modern Australia. Let us go further than that. How many jobs are economists saying were protected or created as a consequence of our stimulus plan?

Seven hundred thousand jobs were created, and Tony Abbott was asleep at the wheel. The reality is that the Australian community is sick and tired of Tony Abbott and his financial goon squad standing over the Australian economy. We are building a nation. We are out there articulating a jobs plan, a plan to create opportunity for every Australian.

Let's go to the next opportunity for us to contrast what we are doing and what the opposition are doing. We are putting in place a modern national broadband network. This network will create opportunity for Australians. It will create opportunity for small businesses right throughout the economy. Guess what they stand for? They stand for saying 'no' to having a modern high-speed broadband network. They stand for denying rural and regional Australians the same internet speed as city folk. Again, it is trashing the opportunity for us to grow our economy.

Let's now go to manufacturing. There has been a lot of debate about manufacturing in more recent times. The Australian government has put in place a $5.4 billion new car plan to help support car manufacturing in this nation. A little earlier a member indicated that we are one of 12 countries that can produce motor vehicles from design right through to manufacture. Guess what their contribution to this debate is? It is to cut $500 million today from the new car plan, putting at risk an important sector of this economy. But they actually go further than that. They have indicated very clearly through statement after statement that in 2015 all support for the Australian motor vehicle industry will cease, if Tony Abbott is elected as Prime Minister. That will directly put at risk 200,000 jobs in the motor vehicle industry. It will put at risk 2,000 jobs in the Geelong economy and community. Again they have no plan to develop and grow our economy. The car industry is far more important to this country than almost any other sector because it is one of those catalyst industries that provide skills right throughout the economy. The Labor government believes in manufacturing motor vehicles. What do they stand for? Tony Abbott stands for no car industry in this country.

On top of that, some $400 billion in private sector investment is coming through the mining boom. This is creating opportunities for Australians—for small to medium manufacturers to participate in that investment and create opportunities. But there is a bit of a downside on this, and that is the structural adjustment we see happening to the Australian economy as a consequence. In the last two weeks Alcoa, an aluminium smelter, has indicated that because of the very high Australian dollar and a very low metal price on the London exchange their smelter at Point Henry needs to be reviewed. I can tell you right now that workers at Alcoa have a very sophisticated understanding of their industry. They are disgusted at the attempt by the Liberal Party to blame it on the Clean Energy package. It is wrong. The workers say it is wrong, the unions say it is wrong and, importantly, the company says it is wrong. They have said it at the highest level possible in Australia: through Alan Cransberg, the CEO of Alcoa in Australia.

The Australian community has become disgusted with the opposition and the approach they have taken to our economy. We have a plan to create jobs. We have a plan to give working families the opportunity to grow their incomes. Those on the other side do not stand for that at all. They stand for privilege. They stand for denying workers the same opportunities they might have experienced. We have a strong plan to support manufacturing, to support high-speed broadband and, importantly, to give people the opportunity to participate in the economy.

The efforts of Joe Hockey and Andrew Robb, as the financial spokesmen of the Liberal Party, are shameful. Tony Abbott does not stand for a strong Australian economy as we do. We are investing and giving people the opportunity to invest. But we do have some challenges and we are working with industry and with workers to address those challenges, which are coming from the high Australian dollar. We know the challenges and we are working with industry to address them.

The Liberal Party have embarrassed themselves in the past few weeks. We have a plan to grow jobs and create opportunities in Australia. High-skilled, high-wage jobs are what we stand for and we are proud of it. It is the Labor way.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The discussion is now concluded.