Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Now we are hearing the ex-National Party senator, Senator McGauran, talking about economic policy. What an extraordinary example that is—he has brought over to the Liberal Party the psychobabble that we normally hear from the National Party, and it just keeps going.

It did not take Minister Scullion very long—and we just heard Senator Fierravanti-Wells do it—to move straight to blaming the states for problems with housing affordability and the increasing pressure that all Australians are under through the governments’ policies. They go straight into blaming the states; they have no answers or policy position themselves. Of course, when interest rates were lower they wanted to take all the credit for the way the economy was going. But, as they get to their ninth interest rate increase in a row and the fifth increase under the government since they made that failed and dishonest promise in the last election campaign, it is everyone else’s problem. They wanted to take all the credit at one stage; now it is everyone else’s problem.

How often do we hear from the government that it is always the states’ fault? They always have to blame the states. When things are not going well, when the levers of the economy at the national level are not working the way the government set out, it must be the states’ fault. But when things are going well we never actually hear them say that it is anything to do with the states. Today I think Senator Brandis acknowledged that the reduction in unemployment had been happening since well prior to the election of the current government. It has been clearly trending downward since 1993. Are they crediting the states for that? No. The government will take all the credit for that, even though in many instances the states’ policies of manufacturing, development and economic growth contributed to that reduction. The complete lie is given to this argument time and time again.

The Prime Minister, John Howard, must have been mocking Australians when he claimed in the other place that working families ‘have never been better off’. He must have been mocking those Australian workers and families when family budgets are under pressure from all sides—childcare costs, petrol costs, grocery costs, rising mortgages and the inability of many families to make their mortgage repayments. Ten years ago the average home cost about four times the average annual wage. Today it costs about seven times the average annual wage. Prime Minister Howard mocks Australian workers; he is completely out of touch. He mocked Australians when he claimed that working families had never been better off. This is simply another— (Time expired)