Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker has received a letter from the honourable member for Fenner proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Government's failure to address rising inequality.

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—

Andrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Suppose for just a moment that the 10 minutes allocated to this speech was distributed as unequally as Australian wealth. If that was true, I would spend the first six minutes and 13 seconds talking about the richest fifth, then two minutes and three seconds speaking about the next fifth, just a minute and eight seconds speaking about Middle Australia, 31 seconds speaking about the second-bottom fifth and the last five seconds speaking about the poorest. In short, it would sound an awful lot like the typical Liberal speech.

This is a government that says it fights for freedoms. But the problem is that the sorts of freedoms they fight for are not the freedoms ordinary Australians care about. They fight for the freedom to stash your cash in a tax haven, the freedom for big banks to avoid a royal commission, the freedom to buy a negatively-geared home for your one-year-old baby, the freedom to deduct a $6,000 toaster, the freedom to be named in the Panama papers.

Plutocratic politics is on the rise. We on this side of the House thought it was pretty bad when John Howard said he would not move into the Lodge. Now we have a Prime Minister who is too good to move into Kirribilli House. Yet he lectures us about elites. Let's face it: being lectured about elites by this Prime Minister is like being lectured about sportsmanship by John McEnroe, about abstinence by Ozzy Osbourne, about driver safety by Troy Buswell, or about loyalty by the Treasurer.

This is a government that never takes responsibility. When Adam and Eve were caught in the Garden of Eden, the Liberals sent around talking points saying it was all Labor's fault and that if only we had supported a company tax cut the serpent would not have got there at all. That side of politics cut the wages of the people who clean their offices, while fighting tooth and nail against closing multinational tax loopholes. They are the group who do not want cabinet to sit on a Sunday and do not open their electorate offices on a Sunday but who want to cut the penalty rates for workers who work on a Sunday. They just do not realise how the other half live.

I was in the suburb of Ravenswood with the member for Bass last week. It is a suburb where the average income is $32,000—not individual income but household income—where the unemployment rate is 16 per cent and where those opposite do not visit. They do not care. It is not just in Ravenswood where people are hurting. Low-income Australians live six fewer years than affluent Australians, and they have an average of seven fewer teeth. We are coming up to Christmas and, according to surveys, one in 20 Australian families say that they cannot afford to buy Christmas presents for their friends and family. In Australia most categories of crime have fallen over recent decades, yet the share of Australians behind bars today is the highest it has been since 1901.

Some of the other speakers in this MPI debate are going to focus on the rise in inequality, but I want to note that that is showing up in unexpected places in the United States, a country where the top 0.1 per cent now have a larger share of income than the bottom 90 per cent and where the life expectancy for white working-class women has actually been falling over recent years—a phenomenon that Angus Deaton and Anne Case call 'deaths of despair'. I commend the shadow minister for finance for his detailed analysis of how Australia could walk down that road.

Australia has a great egalitarian tradition. As the Leader of the Opposition has pointed out, it is Labor that is defending not just our tradition but that of the nation. We are a country that does not much like tipping—we prefer to pay a good wage—and where many of us will sit in the front seat of taxis and you cannot buy a private area on the beach: that is the Australian way. When in 2009, with leadership from the member for Lilley and the member for Jagajaga, Labor raised the pension and brought one million Australians out of poverty we were not just fighting for working Australians and low-income Australians; we were fighting for the Australian way of life.

Part of the great egalitarian tradition of Eureka, Curtin, Lawson and Lingiari is our great trade union movement. Unions are not just the organisations that brought you sick leave, the eight-hour day and the weekend; they are also the strongest bulwark we have against rising inequality. Indeed, about one-third of the rise of inequality we have seen over recent decades has been caused by the declining union membership share.

I need to be clear: Labor has no tolerance for corruption, whether we are seeing it from mining companies, construction companies or former Liberal Party directors. We on this side of the House understand that unions have played a critical role in egalitarianism. It is unions that fight for dollar pay increases and for pay equity across the workforce, for pay equity for women in the workforce and for Indigenous Australians. The SACS equal pay case recognised that women had been systematically underpaid in feminised occupations. It is unions that are arguing for gender pay equality. If you are against unions as a whole then you are on the side of the billionaires, not the side of the battlers.

Inequality is fundamental to so much of what we do in this place. If we do not tackle inequality, we are not going to close the gender pay gap, which has stubbornly failed to close for a generation. If you believe in closing the gaps, which all of us in this place do, then you have to recognise that one of the reasons why the Indigenous and non-Indigenous gaps have stayed stubbornly wide is rising earnings inequality in Australia. If you want to increase the home ownership rate, which is now at a 60-year low, then you have to care about inequality. No, the solution is not that wealthy parents shell out to help their kids get a home. If you believe in closing the opportunity gap and that the postcode into which you are born should not determine your life chances, then you need to care about inequality—because an Australia where the gaps between the rungs are widening is an Australia where it becomes harder and harder to climb up and down the ladder of opportunity over the course of a lifetime.

As the shadow Treasurer pointed out in his address this week on 'the case for opportunity', new estimates on social mobility show the problem is worse than we thought and that intergenerational mobility in Australia is lower than had previously been thought, and part of the reason for that is rising inequality. In the United States, it is unequal, immobile places, where people do not have a chance to move up the ladder, as a result of inequality. I hear those opposite saying, 'Oh, it's just the United States,' as though there is nothing wrong with Australia going down the United States road. But, if you look across the world, you see systematically that countries with more inequality are countries with less mobility. If you believe in the maxim that any kid, regardless of his or her background, should be able to make it, then you have to believe in egalitarianism. We believe in that Australian value on this side of the House. That is why we are standing up for the Australian values of home ownership and the right to be rewarded for working on weekends. It is why we on this side of the House believe in egalitarian funding of schools and providing equality of opportunity through our school funding. It is why we stood against the government's GP tax, and it is why we have consistently stood for a fair taxation system.

In July of next year, this government is going to bring down a tax cut for those earning over $180,000 a year. Everyone in this House will be a beneficiary of that tax cut, but that is because many of us in this House sit in just the top couple of per cent of the Australian income distribution. Indeed, 94 per cent of the benefits of that tax cut will go to the top one per cent, a group that has doubled its share of national income over the course of the last generation. The top one per cent of Australia does not need yet another tax cut from the Turnbull government.

But there is one area in which the Turnbull government has given us more equality. Since the member for Wentworth became Prime Minister, we have seen more equality in this House. When the member for Wentworth became Prime Minister, there was a lot of inequality—a lot of people on that side and fewer people on this side. But, since the member for Wentworth has become Prime Minister, the numbers in this House are a lot more equal. And it is not just the numbers in this House; it is the votes as well. For the first time in 50 years, we are seeing a bit of equality. A few votes in this House are coming out in favour of this side. Equality: it is a great Australian value and you cannot keep it down.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I call the Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, I remind people that the MPI is not a team sport—one speaker at a time.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is very hard at the end of the year to get the energy to rise against these MPIs when no thought goes into them from members opposite and, really, they get more pathetic. You think you have seen the worst MPI ever? No, wait; there is a worse one coming along. 'The government's failure to address rising inequality' could perhaps be the single worst MPI that we have ever had in Commonwealth history. All that the member for Fraser really did was rail against inequality in the United States. He ignored the great Australian compact that sees more people share more wealth in this country than almost any society on earth. That is the truth of Australia. That is why we uniquely reject notions of class. We have always rejected notions of class, we have always rejected notions of privilege and we have always rewarded hard work, merit, enterprise and people doing things for themselves, not the government doing things for them. The member for Fraser is another emblematic example of what is wrong with Bill Shorten and the Labor Party. It is all fraud.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The assistant minister will refer to members by their titles.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Maribyrnong; the Leader of the Opposition—it is all fraud. Why is it fraud? It is fraud because the member for Fenner has written extensively on his right-wing views on economics.

There is no greater starting point for understanding the member for Fenner and what is wrong with modern Labor than the fact that they have deliberately pushed out everybody from the right of centre on the economic spectrum from the party. This is not the party of Keating anymore. This is not the party of Hawke. The member for Fenner now has to go through these embarrassing contortions in this House pretending to be left wing—and we know you are pretending, member for Fenner. You are faking it, and we know you are faking it.

Really, it is an embarrassing spectacle to come in here and pretend to be a left-winger. You should let your inner right-winger come out, because you have written so extensively on it. And we agree with so much of what you have written. I have got some of your books, member for Fenner, because they are a good read on economics in this country. You make some sense. And if your colleagues bothered to get some copies of your books and have a read, they would learn something too. They would learn something about company tax in this country because the member for Fenner was one of the people that understood.

Even the shadow Treasurer understood when he spoke and said that it was a uniquely Australian Labor value to lower company tax in this country. That was his view a few years ago because he was marketing the idea that it was the Labor Party that lowers the company tax to make it internationally competitive. That compact that has existed in Australian politics is understanding of the fact that, when you lower the company tax rate, it is not rich multinationals that sit on a pile of gold or money; it is more investment in our country, which means more Australians get employed.

Being competitive in international tax rates is an equaliser for all strata of Australian society, especially the workers. That is why this government has an enterprise tax plan to lower the corporate tax rate for Australian small businesses. And it is to the eternal shame of this Labor Party, the modern Labor Party, that they oppose a tax cut for small Aussie family businesses from $2 million to $10 million. They oppose a reduction in the tax rate for small Australian family businesses to allow them to compete with their international competitors.

We know that our company tax rate is now one of the highest in the world. We know in our region we are not competitive. We know that the average tax rate in our region is now at 23c and that in many of our competitor countries it is at 17c and 16c. We know that by lowering the burden of tax on small Australian family businesses from $2 million to $10 million, we will encourage job growth, we will encourage enterprise growth and we will encourage wage growth, member for Fenner, something that is so hard to achieve at the moment. It will unlock economic prosperity for this country.

Paul Keating cut the company tax rate. Paul Keating understood that you had to cut the company tax rate. You see this Labor Party and this member for Fenner pretending to be a leftie opposing the reduction of company tax for small and medium Australian family businesses. It is to the great shame of this Labor Party that they have done that, that they refuse to allow Australian small businesses to get a tax cut to compete.

We know what is going on over there; it is the Leader of the Opposition's Labor Party that has been brought into this parliament—nothing is true, everything has to be opposed and the economy can go to hell. And there could be nothing more unequal, if I was to address the member for Fenner directly, than passing on the biggest debt legacy in Australian history onto our children and grandchildren. For you to pretend that you had no role, that the opposition had no role in the creation of that debt legacy is false. Everybody knows it is false. Every Australian listening to this understands that it is false.

We have to do whatever we can as a parliament to reduce government expenditure, to rein in excessive expenditure, to get debt under control, to pay down debt, to get the deficit in and not pass on that intergenerational inequity to our children and grandchildren. It is the most pressing mission of this parliament. It is what Standard & Poor's is saying to us every day: you must get your budget settings under control. They are begging this parliament and they are begging the opposition to listen to the government in a serious message that we must restrain expenditure growth, that we must cut government spending and that we must deliver savings into this budget this year. They are lecturing you, they lecturing us, and no warning could be taken more seriously by this government.

We have already put through $6.3 billion in savings, but we need to do much more. We are sitting on $22 billion of savings that are currently before the Australian Labor Party. They refuse to agree to them, even though many of these things are in their own policies. It is just like the $6.3 billion omnibus bill. They railed against many of those measures for three years for their political advantage, then agreed to them in the election campaign and then agreed to them after the election, putting through the budget. And here we are in this cycle again. You are railing against many of the measures that we want to sensibly restrain expenditure growth, when you know they must be passed if Australia is to retain its AAA rating.

The Labor Party understand, but what will they do under this Leader of the Opposition and this member for Fenner? They will rail against these measures, for political advantage, for as long as they can. They will be budget wreckers and budget vandals. They know these measures have to be passed. They will end up passing them. They will either end up agreeing to them in the next parliament or they will ask us to agree with them if they happen to win the election. They know that now and yet they are willing to risk Australia's future prosperity, willing to risk our economy by threatening our AAA credit rating, by being budget wreckers. Nothing could be more unequal than risking Australians' future.

The member for Fenner wants to lecture us about inequality. They want to stand there as a Labor opposition and rail against our PaTH program to get people back into employment. Yet the member for Fenner will remember that in 2014 he advertised for unpaid interns to work in his own office. I have a copy of the ad right here. This is the question the member for Fenner poses to those unpaid interns:

Is it unfair not to pay people?

This what the member for Fenner postulates in his advertisement for unpaid interns. The ad goes on:

This is something we've worried about a lot. If we had an external source of funding, I'd love to run a paid internship program.

It's not like they don't have the CFMEU and $11 million of external funding, is it! The ad goes on:

But we don't. So our philosophy has been to work hard to ensure that interns/fellows have an experience that's stimulating and rewarding …

In the member for Fenner's office. So here we go. And not only did the member for Fenner make use of unpaid interns, free labour, for his office but he actually uses them as researchers for all of the books that he writes. He credits them, thankfully, in his books, but he does not pay them. Why would this opposition oppose this government's sensible measures to get young people back into employment through Prepare-Trial-Hire? Why would you oppose a program like that, where we are actually arranging to make sure they get a wage subsidised by the government, when you have members here advertising for unpaid interns and not paying them to write their own books? It is rank hypocrisy at its worst.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I remind the member for Hume, the member for Parramatta and the member for Fenner that we will have one person speaking at a time.

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I congratulate the member for Fenner on a brilliant speech. There are stark differences between this side of the House and that side of the House. We live in a community. They think we live in a corporation. We on this side of the House honour the hard work that creates wealth. They just honour the wealth itself. Those on that side of the House are so out of touch with average Australians. They do not walk in the same shopping aisles as average Australians—and this applies particularly to the Prime Minister. If they did, they would not attack all the building blocks of strong economic growth and a fairer society like they have since 2014.

What they have done since 2014 is to attempt to smash the industrial relations system of our country. It is our industrial relations system that has given us a prosperous middle class and working class in this country, and their mission is to destroy it. Those people on that side of the House want to destroy the great enablers of universal health and education, which not only drive a better society but drive fundamental growth in an economy. They want to smash them. Worst of all, they are seeking to make our taxation system more regressive and trying to poke gigantic holes in our social safety net. All of those building blocks are what, around the world, drive economic growth. If you have a prosperous middle class, that will drive your economy. It is a driver of prosperity, not a consequence of it. Those on that side of the House do not understand the economics of that proposition at all. It is now well understood by the IMF, who have absolutely condemned, in all of their analysis, the economic approach taken by those on the other side of the House since 2014. In addition to saying that we should be enabling the prosperity of middle- and low-income earners in our community, we should also be investing in infrastructure. They are doing none of those things. As a consequence, we have got weaker growth, growing inequality and lower wages.

This government pretends that it is concerned about income inequality. In fact, the Prime Minister gave a speech at the Business Council last week and he said that we must 'seem to be fair'. Well, I have got a message for him: we must be fair, not seem to be fair. That is the approach of all those on that side of the House—all the cosmetic attempts to claim that they are being fair. Day in, day out, they rubbish and demean the basic drivers of a stronger economy: strong economic growth and a healthy society.

This Prime Minister was so concerned about income inequality that, from the time he became Leader of the Opposition in this House in 2008 right through until six months ago, he never once uttered the words 'income inequality'. But in the last six months he has mentioned it five times. It is a problem out there, but he has a policy agenda to make it worse, not better. Protecting and putting in place policies which protect the hard work of low- and middle-income-earning Australians is the key to growth and the key to a prosperous society. But this group over there want to discredit those great enablers of growth. Really, their strategy is this: discredit the facts about what is going on in the economy. They do this day in, day out. They try to discredit our trade unions and run down our social security system—all of those things. And then they say that what we need to solve all of our problems is a massive tax cut for the top end of town. And then, based on all of those facts, they argue that the tax cuts will generate enough money to pay for themselves. And, when that does not happen, what do they argue? They argue that we have to get rid of all the entitlements.

That is the strategy that plays out through question time every day, as it has done through both terms of this government. They do not understand that inequality is important. They actually think inequality is good for the country. That is what they really think. They have a 'survival of the fittest' mentality. We on this side of the House believe that what we need to do is run a progressive taxation system so that we have the revenue to drive investment in health and education. We need those things in order to be a prosperous economy and society. And, all the time that we are having these arguments, we have a Prime Minister standing at the dispatch box who is a fully paid-up member of the Cayman Islands club, watching his capital grow under the palm trees. We all know that rampant tax evasion is one of those policies that is ripping apart the social contract in this country. (Time expired)

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is always a pleasure to follow the member for Lilley. He reminds us once again that, when we came into government in 2013, we inherited a record debt. He demonstrates that they will not let the facts get in the way of a good story. He talks about us not investing in infrastructure. Well, I would remind him of our announcement earlier today about what we are doing in infrastructure. Let's look at what we were left with after six years of Labor in government, the chaos they left behind—the cherry on top was the carbon tax—and the damage that did to our economy. One of the first things the coalition government did when it got into power was seek to repeal the carbon tax. But what we did when we repealed the carbon tax was leave the compensation in place for families in Australia. There are many other things that we have done since to help across the country.

In six years of Labor, let us not look at what Labor talked about; let us look at what they actually achieved or succeeded in doing. In their term in office, household health costs increased by 35 per cent, education costs increased by 39 per cent, gas prices increased by 71 per cent, water and sewerage prices increased by 79 per cent and electricity prices increased by 101 per cent. Well, congratulations! The very people you say you support—the ones who are most in need and who struggle to make ends meet day-to-day—all you succeeded in doing in your term in office was making their life harder by increasing their costs of living by enormous amounts.

In contrast, the coalition government is seeking to create an economy that has high-skilled jobs and high-paying jobs that will assist in reducing inequality. If we can ensure people are trained and educated to get these full-time, high-paying jobs, we reduce that inequality. That is what the government's policy framework is designed to do. That is what the enterprise tax plan is designed to do. It is designed to encourage business to invest and grow and leave profits in businesses.

To remind the member for Fenner of some of his comments about lower taxes. In The Australian Financial Review in March 2010 he says that:

Promising to raise company taxes has a visceral appeal to any ambitious opposition—

Well, we see that—

Perhaps some voters will think they will be borne by the companies themselves, leaving all living persons miraculously unharmed.

He recognises there is harm in raising taxes. He also goes on to say, in an interview on 18 November 2015, that there is value in reducing the company tax rate to 25 per cent. So he readily acknowledges that there is value in lowering company tax rates and lowering taxes more generally.

We are not only looking to help businesses but also, importantly, looking to help those who are struggling to find a job and get into the workforce, through our Youth Employment Package. We are looking to help 120,000 young Australians take advantage of the job opportunities as our economy diversifies and transitions away from the mining construction boom. In addition, we are spending some $1.1 billion on our National Innovation and Science Agenda. I see, in my electorate, many young, innovative businesses who are looking to grow. They are looking to employ local people to allow them to grow.

It is this government on this side of the House that is actually doing the utmost it can to tackle these issues of inequality by creating a framework for the Australian economy to grow and prosper. On the matter of infrastructure—for the benefit of the member for Lilley and those opposite—the government is spending some $50 billion on infrastructure and is also investing in Defence, jobs and projects.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'The land of the fair go is disappearing,' is what the former Liberal leader John Hewson had to say in the wake of the 2014 budget. That was the budget, remember, that shone a dirty, big spotlight on this government's twisted priorities for this nation—the most unfair budget this nation had ever seen. But the Australian people were a wake up to you. Even John Hewson was a wake up to you. You would have done well to heed some advice, but, no, you guys know what is best. Well, there are social consequences of growing inequality in Australia. We know what those are: it compounds disadvantage already existing in this nation, it leads to poorer physical and mental health in this nation and it leads to poorer living conditions for people. But it is also bad news for our economy. It makes no sense whatsoever to further entrench inequality in this nation.

Resources are becoming concentrated in fewer and fewer hands and that is resulting in reduced economic participation for the majority of people in this nation. Practically, that means fewer new businesses, fewer house purchases, less purchasing of goods and services—all the things that members opposite purport to actually care about, I might add—all of which face massive downturns as a result of this growing inequality. There is a widening gap between the highest and the lowest income earners, and this is something that we are seeing emerge across the globe.

Growing inequality is a problem for any society. We know that across the developed world it is ordinary citizens everywhere who are seeing wages stagnate and growth stall—the middle classes are shrinking. Living standards are dropping and daily living costs are mounting. In fact, since 1980 nearly half a trillion dollars has been shifted from the bottom 99 per cent to the top one per cent. Inequality is not just bad for those on the poor side of the equation; it is bad for social cohesion and bad for our economy. Even the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have recognised that growing inequality is a drag on economic growth. A recent study by the Chifley Research Centre found that economic inequality in Australia would cost each and every Australian $500 a year within three years if we continued on this current trajectory. The same study found that the loss to the wider economy is greater than the expected gains from the Japan, China and Korea free trade agreements combined. We are at a crossroads and the decisions we make on the way are incredibly important to the future of this country. Sadly, we know that under this government the country is going in the wrong direction.

I just want to spend the remaining couple of minutes shining light on the fact that all of the policies that members opposite are progressing in this parliament that purport to have gender neutrality do, in fact, have a disproportionate impact for Australian women and their families. In particular, I want to go to the cuts around family payments that are still to come. We are going to see a single-parent family with an income of around $40,000 and two kids in high school left $3,000 worse off. Proposed cuts to paid parental leave will see 80,000 new mums left stranded and worse off. The will be a one-month wait for those people on income support—those cuts will be aimed at young job seekers who will be left with nothing to live on for an entire month.

But it is actually women who are particularly impacted by the inequality that is growing under the watch of this government. There was an interesting study by the IMF on how that inequality looks around the world. The system that this government is putting in place wants to entrench further inequality that will set up gross disparities here. We know women have less savings. We know women have less superannuation. This leads to increased economic insecurity and vulnerability And that leaves women, particularly older women, in atrocious situations in Australia. We are a country that prides itself on egalitarian traditions, but the reality is there is income inequality— (Time expired)

Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no-one in this House that does not believe that inequality is an important issue that needs to be resolved.

Mr Swan interjecting—

The member for Lilley can carry on as much as he likes, but under his tenure as Treasurer more was done to create inequality than under any other Treasurer in the history of this federation. The fact of the matter is—

Honourable members interjecting—

Yes, I can read IMF reports—some of you should try it every once in a while. What we disagree with are the sources of that inequality. We believe that what really matters is whether a community creates or provides the opportunity for any person, no matter what circumstances they are born into, to go wherever they want to. Mobility is more critical than inequality because no person's potential should be limited by what circumstances they are born into. There is no disagreement that inequality is undesirable.

What we argue about are the sources of that inequality. Therefore, is it any surprise that we disagree as to what those solutions should be? But, honestly, I have to say that the evidence is so overwhelming that the solutions advocated by those opposite do not work that they must actually have been proposed by people who believe the moon landing was faked or that the Berlin Wall came crashing down because people were trying to get in, not out. Let us take some examples of their reasons for inequality—for example, the Panama Papers. Apparently it is part of some worldwide conspiracy to hide tax income in Panama! The way the member for Lilley speaks, there is actually a giant volcano in Panama and, if you just open the top, there is a lair of people sitting inside advocating the downfall of Western society. Then you get the dark and evil forces gathered around the boardrooms of Australia's corporations, where they are just plotting to make things worse. Or, apparently, it is because we on this side have been undermining the union movement—like they were not doing a good enough job on their own! But, of course, we also have: 'We just need more money going into the welfare system,' 'We just need to distribute more money to people,' and 'We need a tax system that is more distributive.'

Why don't we take each of these issues one by one? According to the ATO and the ABS, multinational tax evasion is in the shadows of the cash economy and represents about two per cent of GDP. The Heydon royal commission, beyond anything else that this parliament has ever seen, showed that the union movement and its leaders are more interested in self-enrichment than they are in helping the workers they pretend to represent. We had hardworking Australians paying union dues so that that money could be spent on holidays, holiday homes, private school fees, tattoos and prostitutes.

We spend $154 billion a year on welfare, and the sad fact of the matter is that we have not shifted the needle one iota—and, according to those opposite, it has got worse. If you are in Australia's welfare system or you are predominantly reliant on Australia's welfare system, you will have lower health outcomes, you will have lower education outcomes, you will not live as long, you will have a higher incidence of crime—

Mr Swan interjecting—

The member for Lilley thinks that is okay. And you will have a higher probability of passing those outcomes on to your children. When we look at the tax system in Australia, we see that it is 19 times more distributive than the OECD average, and transfer payments are 12 times higher than in France. For every dollar those in the top quintile of income earners in Australia pay, they get 30c back in government services. If you are unlucky enough to be in the lowest quintile, for every dollar you pay, you receive $324 in government services. In other words, you are 1,000 times more distributive.

It is long past time that Labor stopped posturing about caring, because they do not. If you care about mobility and reducing inequality then support microeconomic reform; if you care about decimating inequality then support tax reform; and, if you care about saving lives, support welfare reform.

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

Socioeconomic disadvantage is a growing problem in this country—and we all know that. Under this Turnbull government, it has grown even more. Australia is a country that was built on egalitarianism and that foundation of equality. We heard the member for Fenner say earlier that you are more likely to travel in the front seat of a taxi here in Australia than most places around the world. Compared to any other country in the world, you are more likely to have friends from different socioeconomic backgrounds than yourself. We are a country that respects everyone, regardless of what your job is, what your income is and what your background is.

That has always been the case in this nation, and it has always been one of the reasons we have prospered so well over the years. But this current government is changing one of the most fundamental things that we have had in this nation: the foundations of our equality. The foundations were set and protected through policies that were implemented by successive Labor governments, by great people such as Chifley, Whitlam, Hawke and Keating. They all did the best they could to create equality in this country. Think back to all the major policies that led to real change in this country and made it the way it is and you will see a Labor government at the forefront. Under Whitlam, we had free education for all—a system that allowed people to attend university for the very first time, when no-one from their families had attended for generations.

Look at the way the pension was set-up under the Chifley government to give people the chance to live with dignity in their old age. This is what we are talking about—real equality, making sure that where there is inequality those gaps are reduced. These are all Labor policies that reduced inequality. As a result, they have helped to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor and ensure that a person's success was not based on their postcode, where they born, their background, their race, their colour or their religion, et cetera. These are fundamental policies that reflect basic human rights—human rights that we should all enjoy—that have been implemented by Labor governments.

What has happened in the last few years? In this nation today, we are facing a 75-year high of inequity. If we go back 75 years, it would be 1941—the beginning of World War I. This is the area we are in at the moment. Wage growth is at a 30-year low. We would have to go back to 1986 to see wage growth at the rate that it is at the moment. Wage growth in September 2016 was half of what it was four years ago—3.7 per cent in September 2012. Since this government was elected in 2013, living standards have declined by about two per cent. Today, 20 per cent of Australians cannot afford a week's holiday per year away from home, let alone sending their money on a holiday to the Cayman Islands as a tax evasion scheme, as we see happen.

Thirteen per cent of Australians cannot afford dental treatment if they need it. Every week, I see people coming to my office—pensioners, who have worked all their lives who have paid their taxes, some who have fought in wars, who cannot afford dental care. They do not have private health insurance. They do not have lots of money. They are reliant on waiting lists and can go without dentures, for example, for 12 months. Where is the equality in that? Six per cent cannot afford Christmas presents for their families—we heard that earlier from the member for Fenner.

Despite all this, the government continue to demand greater employment flexibility. What do they mean by greater employment flexibility? It means that an employer can pay people less for working on weekends, not deal with unions in the workplace, not provide a decent minimum wage, maybe sack people without notice, and have the flexibility to employ 457 visas because they do not want to pay the rates to employ local people. I will tell you want it definitely does not mean. It does not mean that a mum can ask to work from home for a couple of hours because she has a sick child or that a dad can start work an hour later to drop off the kids at school and then work an hour longer. Flexibility is skewed one way, yet this government are asking for more flexibility.

These are not just numbers; these are people's lives—their health and their livelihoods. This is all about people's futures. On top of all that, we see a government that want to give a $50 billion tax cut to the richest people— (Time expired)

Nicolle Flint (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a South Australian, I find it deeply ironic that those opposite have raised the issue of inequality. The member for Hindmarsh, a South Australian as am I, must know that thanks to the South Australian Labor government, South Australians are suffering from some of the greatest inequalities in the nation when it comes to secure, reliable and affordable power. As I am sure everyone in this place is aware, South Australia had, unfortunately, a nationally and internationally unprecedented blackout recently thanks to the state Labor government. We deserve equal access, as the rest of the nation has, to secure, reliable and affordable power. We need the lights on. We need businesses to be able to operate.

Thanks to the disaster-ridden state Labor government, we have the highest electricity charges in the nation. Residents and businesses cannot be sure if they are going to have electricity from one day to the next. I am appalled at this situation. TheAdvertiser this week ran an article talking about how very much families are struggling to keep up with paying the bills. The average amount owed by a record number of South Australians who are classified as in hardship now stands at $1,706. This is the highest average debt in the nation. Adding to this, of course, we had the blackout, and, with the imminent closure of Hazelwood power station by yet another Labor government, things are set to get worse.

The reality is that, in South Australia, families cannot afford to pay skyrocketing power prices. The pensioners and elderly, some of our most vulnerable citizens, cannot afford heating and cooling, and I shudder to think what is going to happen to our power supply during another long, hot, South Australian summer. Businesses are lurching from expensive short-term contract to contract, pushing up their costs, which undoubtedly will have to be passed on to consumers. The sad reality for my residents in my electorate of Boothby and across the state is that they are dealing with this every single day.

There is more evidence of the inequality that Labor have forced upon the people of Australia, I think, through the carbon tax as well. It was devised by Labor and the Greens during the failed Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years, the six years that we had to put up with them in government. This tax placed an unnecessarily heavy burden on Australian families to the tune of about $500 per household per annum. This one piece of public policy immediately drove up the cost of living for each and every Australian, causing everything from grocery bills to power bills to go through the roof. It made life harder for hardworking Australians—and that is who we are actually representing on this side of the House: hardworking Australians.

Mr Perrett interjecting—

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Moreton is disorderly.

Nicolle Flint (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The idea that the opposition now want to come into this place, after they have done so much to fuel inequality, and accuse us of causing inequality is, quite frankly, absurd.

Unlike those opposite, who believe that inequality should be addressed through yet more, higher, taxes and wealth redistribution, we understand that the best way to address inequality is through employment, through the dignity of work. I am reminded of a quote from Warren Mundine, from The Australian, from November 2014, which has really stayed with me. He said:

Poverty comes in different forms and degrees. But the solutions to poverty are the same—education and employment.

We understand that, here on this side of the House. We understand that through jobs, through the dignity of work, people can afford to provide for themselves, for their families and for their communities.

I just want to quickly touch on one of the projects I am particularly proud of in my electorate of Boothby, given that the Prime Minister and the Minister for Urban Infrastructure have made some significant statements on infrastructure today, and that is the extension of the Tonsley line to Flinders Medical Centre and Flinders University. It is a $43 million investment that is going to do so much for people in my electorate in terms of short-term and long-term jobs. It is also going to provide public transport, which is absolutely fabulous, for patients and the families that have to use Flinders Medical Centre, as well as for students going to university. I commend the Prime Minister and the Minister for Urban Infrastructure for all they have done on this project and for infrastructure for our nation.

Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I rise to speak on the Turnbull government's failure to address inequality in Australia. I am not going to delve into generalisations, platitudes and fantasy like those opposite; I am going to tell you about a real person, about Giselle, a 53-year-old woman who came into my electorate office last week in an incredibly distressed state. Giselle was upset that her Austudy payments had been cancelled, while at the same time she had been asked to provide more information to Centrelink about what she was studying and where she was up to. Giselle, at 53, had been trying to re-educate herself to get back into the workforce, despite a number of serious health issues, including thyroid cancer, which led her to have her thyroid removed last year, and Bell's palsy, which requires ongoing treatment.

But Giselle wants to work. She wants to re-educate herself. She was enrolled in a Diploma of Community Services through the Hunter TAFE, which she changed to a certificate IV last year because of her health. She advised Centrelink at the time that she was changing to a certificate IV but was told she did not need to do anything more as long as her study workload had not changed. That information, regrettably, was incorrect and has led to considerable heartache.

Feeling better and more able to cope, Giselle re-enrolled in her diploma in July this year, and she is still studying—and good on her. But, incredibly, Giselle's payments were cut off in October, and she was given no opportunity, no time, to sort the matter out before her payment was cancelled. Listen to this: she received a letter asking her to supply further information about her study on the very same day the decision was made to cut her payments. 'We need more information,' and, 'We're also going to cut your payments,' on the same day—figure that. This was an unnecessary, harsh treatment, but unfortunately it seems typical of this government and oh so common. The phone calls we get on this side you would not believe.

A member of my staff sought to help Giselle by contacting Raymond Terrace Centrelink, a branch as understaffed as all the others since the Abbott-Turnbull government's savage cuts began in 2014. You should hang your heads still about that budget. It truly was deplorable. We all know it, and the Prime Minister admitted it today. Sadly, they were unable to help her and referred us to the study payments branch. However, my staff member was unable to call the study payments branch directly, so she went straight to Minister Tudge's office, such was the urgency of the matter. Giselle's payment was eventually restored when we were able to sort out exactly what information was required and send it through.

The fact that Giselle was not given any time to respond to the request from Centrelink before her payment was cancelled was callous, but unfortunately it is common. In Giselle's own words:

Things did work a lot quicker and better when there was a lot more staff present in the office and not behind walls or over the telephone.

It is very difficult to stay on a phone for three and a half hours, and still no one takes your call or solves anything.

The very few personnel in the office are not very willing to help.

The staff attitude is as if to say: there are only a few of us here and we—

can only do what we can. She continued:

What is the point of renovating and making offices look modern and up to date?

What the people want is prompt service and resolutions to their problems.

I need a job and I am looking for one.

That is why I am studying a diploma in community services.

Giselle was without payment for four weeks, and in that time she had no money for phone credit, for transport or for her much-needed doctors' appointments, not even enough money for food. She was forced to go to a neighbourhood centre for vouchers just to feed herself. And she is not alone. She is among an increasing number of people who cannot make ends meet, because of the callous actions of this government.

Cuts and more cuts mean there are far fewer Centrelink staff to look after more and more Centrelink customers. It is a system that is failing these people and a government that is failing to address this terrible inequality. And I say again to those members opposite: do not lecture our side on what is fair and just and what inequality is. We know it too well because we deal with it every day. It comes in tranches every day into our office. It comes over the phone. I kid you not; I feel as though as I am running a Centrelink office in my own office because they are not well enough staffed—and that is so true. We are all running it on this side. We are helping this government by trying to help the people who so desperately need it, and yet it continues to turn its back on them. That is the rise in inequality under this Turnbull government.

David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am absolutely floored by the disingenuous antics of those opposite this afternoon. Not once did they mention anything about regional or rural Australia, the 6.6 million Australians who live outside metropolitan areas. Not once did they talk about those people in regional or rural Australia, who actually contribute. They are not interested; they do not understand; and they do not care. That is why. They are not interested in what happens west of the great divide. It is all about them, and it is all about their city people.

The reality is this: it is proven beyond doubt that, when Labor is in government, we see an underinvestment in regional and rural Australia. It is only this government, the coalition government, that continues to invest in regional and rural Australia. That is because we know that regional Australia does not actually need a handout; it needs the assistance of a government that puts the framework around it. It puts an environment and it puts infrastructure around it—an environment that actually creates jobs. We pull the economic levers that create jobs. That lets people have a future through their own volition, not by big government handing out money. That is how an economy should work. That is how a nation should work. And we do that.

We have done that through the free trade agreements—trade agreements that are putting dollars, real dollars, into rural community towns and into farmers and into small business owners right across this country. That is something we are very proud of because it has a real impact.

But we are also trying to do that with the tax cuts to small business. You do not understand what a small business is. Ten million dollars in turnover in this day and age is not a lot. But it needs to be more, because if we put money back into small businesses then they will actually go out and they will employ people. They will create the wealth for individuals in each of those towns. But that is the sort of understanding that we get from this mob. They've got no idea at all! The reality is: they are out of touch with the reality of Australia and particularly of regional and rural Australia.

Let us talk about infrastructure. Let us talk about the infrastructure that creates the connectivity to actually let us leverage the trade agreements that this government has put in place—the connectivity around the NBN. In my electorate alone, 68,000 households and premises will have the NBN over the next 18 months. It will let us connect to the global markets, to give us the tools of the 21st century that we need. We have coupled that with the mobile phone black spot program. You guys would never even have thought about the Mobile Black Spot Program. Mobile phones are only to be used in the city, because that is all you understand! The reality is: regional and rural Australians are creating jobs and running multimillion-dollar businesses that need the tools of the 21st century, and we are creating them.

But let us not just talk about the economy, because there was a real inequality in my electorate and right across regional Australia when we came into government. I had kids in my electorate who could not do distance education because they did not have the data plans. Well, this government, under Fiona Nash, has created designated data plans for distance-education children. That is absolutely abhorrent—to think there are children in this country who could not get a proper education because they did not have the connectivity and they did not have the internet to undertake that. It is only this government that has come in and created the opportunity and created equality for those kids. It should not matter where you live; your postcode should not determine your education. And this government has proudly done it—something I am proud to be part of.

But we can go further than that. We can talk further about connectivity and the important strides that we are making in getting our product out across the world. We will build the inland rail. We will move the product from Melbourne to Brisbane and out to the world. Couple that with the $1.6 billion that we are investing in the second range crossing. Think about the $450 million just on the Warrego Highway alone—but you would not even know where it is!

The reality is: we are connecting our producers. We are creating the wealth because we are connecting us to the world. And we are embracing the world like never before, because we, on this side, understand that we are part of a bigger global economy and that we have what the world wants. And it is our job to connect to that and to create equality for all those right across Australia, particularly in regional and rural Australia, who you would not know because you do not understand and you do not care. Give them the opportunity to create the wealth—to do it themselves. Those are the strides that we are making around that: giving them the connectivity and the infrastructure that actually connects us and creates the wealth and creates the jobs.

But then we have also got dog fencing in my electorate. Let me just tell you about the hypocrisy and the disingenuous nature of the Labor Party. It does not just stay here; it goes all the way back to the Queensland state government. They came out in Barcaldine and promised another $5 million to put more dog fencing in. Five months later they had done nothing because they did not understand what it would do for the producers and to build the resilience of the drought-stricken farmers right across western Queensland. They did not care. They did not understand. And it was not until my actions and those of the state member to call out Annastacia Palaszczuk—

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member's time has expired. This discussion has concluded.