Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I take the view that this debate is a long overdue debate in this place. We have had all the rhetoric and all the slogans from the coalition on jobs. And we have seen the Prime Minister in the last week or so suddenly discover there is a problem with jobs in South Australia. That is why he went to South Australia. He has made more promises in South Australia about shipbuilding; before the election, he was in South Australia making promises about submarines. The problem for this government is that nobody believes them on jobs, nobody believes them on the environment, nobody believes them on tax and nobody believes them on any of the issues that are important to the Australian people. That is clear as you read the polls every week that say how bad this government is going. It is simply reflecting the lies and the misrepresentations that were given to the Australian public prior to the last election.

Look at their documents—and I bet not too many coalition members carry this one around with them, this crazy document, Our Plan—realsolutions for all Australians. There is the Treasurer, Joe Hockey, on the front page looking as if somebody has stolen his wallet, and he has looked like that ever since he became Treasurer of this country. He has been one of the worst Treasurers we have ever seen. He brought down a budget that did nothing for unemployment. He brought down a budget that did nothing for the social welfare of this country. He brought down a budget that was overwhelmingly rejected by this country. No wonder he looks so sad and so out of touch in Real solutions for all Australians, because I think he might have been pondering: 'What's going to happen if I get the job? I don't have any answers.' It is clear that he does not have any answers.

Look at this document and the issue of jobs. On page 33, they talk about 'delivering more jobs, higher wages and higher living standards'. We have had them preside over the highest unemployment rate since 2002 and the highest number of unemployed Australians since 1994. So they are not delivering on more jobs, higher wages and higher living standards. They said they would deliver two million new jobs over the next decade. I can tell you they will never do that because they will not be in government to do it. The Australian public have had a gutful of them, a gutful of the lies, a gutful of the misrepresentation and a gutful of the chaos that is there everyday in this government. It is one crisis after another in the Abbott government.

They said that they would be a grown-up government. Yet, only a few months into government, we saw chaos and the position where the Prime Minister was going to be necked by his own backbench only six months ago. He wanted six months to improve things. Well he hasn't improved anything for the unemployed. He hasn't improved anything on the environment. He hasn't improved anything on policy issues. We are still getting the same mindless rhetoric, the same promises that are broken day in day out from a government that does not know how to govern, does not know what it is doing and has got no idea what is in the interests of ordinary Australian families and the unemployed in this country.

They said they would help the unemployed and get young people into a job on page 33 of this so-called 'Real Solutions.' What was their answer to getting young people into a job? The first budget said: 'Take them off the dole for six months. Starve them for six months. Don't give them any means of looking after themselves for six months—that will get them into a job.' How crazy is that sort of approach?

They have now decided: 'Well, we can starve them for a month,' which in reality, if you go through all the processes, will be five weeks with no money. So the unemployed will get nothing for five weeks under this government and, if you are talking about getting the unemployed into jobs, you don't starve them. You actually give them skills. You actually give them training. You give them hope. You give them opportunity. You don't take penal action against them, and that is what this government is all about.

This government is about trying to demonise the unemployed. It set about all the austerity provisions in its first budget and it has had to retreat from there. What is a mature government, if you cannot get even your first budget through the parliament. You are into your second budget, and still major provisions in the first budget have not gone through parliament, because they are unfair and they are unacceptable to the Australian public. They are unacceptable to the opposition.

These are the problems we have. You just cannot go out and make promise after promise after promise like building the submarines in South Australia, like not cutting the ABC, like creating more jobs. You don't have the capacity or the wherewithal to deliver, and that is the problem. You don't have the vision. You don't have the people. You don't have the expertise to deliver as a government, and that is why we have got the highest unemployment since 2002.

What you do is you wreck the opportunity for jobs by cutting back on CSIRO, by cutting back on renewable energy—the jobs of the future—where many of the jobs that would be displaced in manufacturing could then be taken up in renewable energy. That requires more research and development. That needs a better scientific base. It means more work on high-quality research. What is this government doing? It cuts our research capacity in the CSIRO. How is that going to create jobs and a smart economy?

It waxes lyrical about free trade agreements, as if this is some great thing that they have done: they have delivered on free trade agreements. All the analysis I have seen on free trade agreements over many years is that the rhetoric never comes true in terms of what the promises are. I asked the Parliamentary Library: On all the free trade agreements we have, can you tell me what the benefits are in jobs? Can you tell me if the increase in GDP that was analysed in those free trade agreements has ever come to fruition?' They said, 'No, we can't tell you.' It just does not work.

What have they done now on the Chinese free trade agreement? What they have said for the first time ever—

Senator O'Sullivan interjecting—

And you can harp—Senator O'Sullivan can yell all he likes, but from the National Party, who have just displayed their lack of competence, their lack—