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

If there's one thing that really annoys me, it's Senator Cormann talking about fairness and the coalition talking about looking after working people. Let's look at their record on this, and let's go back to the first budget this government ever produced, a budget that ripped way from families in this country and attacked those who were in the weakest position in this country. How did Senator Cormann celebrate that? With a glass of wine and a big Havana cigar—that's how he celebrated unfairness and inequity. It's an absolute nonsense for this senator to stand up here and lecture anyone about fairness and equity. It's a nonsense for Senator Cormann to be standing up here and lecturing people about making the pie bigger when he cuts the capacity for families to put food on the table and to clothe their kids and send them off to school. It's a nonsense for Senator Cormann to get up here and lecture anyone about good economic policy.

What have we had from Prime Minister Turnbull and Minister Cormann? An increase to the GST was going to be the first terrific change that this government was going to make. I think that lasted about a week. It was the big announcement, the big policy change, that was going to make things different in this country—the GST—and I think it lasted one week. Then we had taxing powers being given to the states. I think that lasted a couple of days. That was going to be the game changer from this so-called economically competent government. And now we've got trickle-down economics. Trickle-down economics has never worked in the United States. It hasn't worked in North Carolina, where they were arguing the same point; it hasn't worked in Kansas, where they've done the same thing. They've gone: 'It doesn't work. We need to be able to keep our hospitals going. We need to keep our infrastructure, we need to keep our education system and we need to pay our public servants.' This is the reality of being in government. These guys over on the other side of the chamber, these people that see Milton Friedman as their hero, believe in small government and think that government should only deal with defence and legal issues. It doesn't work. Governments need to be intervening in a mixed economy to make the economy work.

I want to go to this issue about increasing the pie. You don't increase the pie by cutting penalty rates from working families. You don't increase the pie by making one of the major areas of social benefit in this country—the trade union movement—weaker. All this mob want to do is give more power to the bosses over the workers and diminish the capacity of the trade union movement to protect workers' wages and conditions. Well, let me tell you, Senator Cormann: that doesn't increase the pie. That diminishes the pie because all it does is put more money into corporate profits that go to their bottom line and go right back to executive salaries in this country. That is not what we want in this country. If it's about redistribution then Labor's in for redistribution. We want to look after those who have difficulty looking after themselves. We want to make sure that workers get a fair go in this country. And we want to make sure that the inequality that is so rife in this country—the inequality that is a huge problem—is dealt with. All this government wants to do is increase inequality and increase the capacity for employers to gain more at the expense of working people.

If we're going to talk about sustainable growth, the future of the economy and the future of this country, let's do something about climate change and make sure that we are in a position to build and access the new technology and keep power getting to communities around this country by going to renewables, because that is the future. All we have from this mob are scare campaigns. Remember when it was the former Senator Joyce in here—it was $100 lamb roasts. They are the experts in fear campaigns in this country. I won't cop a lecture from Senator Cormann about good economics, because he has displayed none of that as the finance minister.

The Prime Minister has displayed no good economic positions in this country. I've gone through the failures that the government have had. When you attack the health system, as this mob did in the 2014-15 budget, when you take money out of the education system and try and penalise the poor—that is not the way forward. Is there any wonder the Prime Minister is now on his 30th Newspoll loss? And, when you add the previous Prime Minister, it's 60 losses! People are jack of this terrible government, this rabble of a government, this government that just cannot get its act together. Its members are too busy beating up on each other. It's an absolute disgrace.

And I have to say it's a disgrace that some of those senators across the chamber—the Independents—have just caved in to this bad government. I heard today the new senator from Tasmania, who's supposed to be representing Tasmania, reading out a dorothy dixer prepared by the government. What are they doing? They should look after working people in Tasmania, stop capitulating to this bad government and make sure that Tasmania's got a future. That's what they should be doing, not capitulating and kowtowing to the Turnbull government. And, Senator Anning, the sooner you join the Liberals the better, because you are no more than a vote for the Liberals on every issue, regardless of whether it hurts working people in this country. All the Steven Bradburys in the Senate that are here now because others have fallen apart should really be in the Liberal Party or the National Party, because that's how they vote. They don't care about working people. They don't care about penalty rates for workers. They just simply accept the rhetoric that we hear from Senator Cormann in here day in, day out.

Senator Cormann has just not got it when it comes to economics. This government doesn't have it when it comes to looking after its finances. Budget deficits have increased. National debt has increased. And this is the mob that were out there telling everybody what a terrible position we had. They are hopeless. They are absolutely hopeless. If you Independents want any chance of surviving—and I don't think you've got much now—and hanging on at the next election, you've got to stop backing this lousy government in every time it attacks working people and working families in this country. It is a bad government with a weak leader that doesn't understand what's good for working people in this country. When you go away, you should come back here and vote against these corporate tax cuts. You should listen to your communities when they tell you that they don't want $65 billion going to the corporates, they want their penalty rates saved and they want to make sure that they've got an opportunity to feed their families. This is a bad government with a bunch of Independents who are simply kowtowing to it. They should show a bit of backbone, show a bit of leadership, stand up for their communities and stand up against this bad government.

Question agreed to.