Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was listening closely, as I often do, to Senator Smith's contribution. It is true that Senator Smith is a person who acts on his convictions. But I ask the coalition to consider this: it may be that your convictions are, on this occasion, wrong—that the economic ideas that were important to you in the 1980s, the 1990s and maybe the first decade of the 2000s have in fact been superseded by new, additional information.

One of the things that we do know about economies now, that we didn't know then, is that the distribution of wealth within an economy matters. It matters a great deal in terms of the ability of that economy to sustain ongoing levels of growth. It hinges on the distribution of prosperity within the community. It's this overall failure on the part of the coalition to understand this critical piece of information that leads them to bring a position before the Australian public again and again that isn't supported by the evidence and, indeed, isn't supported by the public.

Senator Smith is part of a government that recently went to a by-election in Braddon, went to a by-election in Longman, went to a by-election in Fremantle and went to a by-election in South Australia and was unable to prevail in any of these contests, many of them being contests that pundits thought they ought to be able to win. In fact, based on the experience in Longman it should have been very difficult for Susan Lamb to retain that seat. But instead, by proceeding in a methodical way to set out the differences between the Labor approach to taxation, and to corporate tax in particular, and the Liberal approach Susan Lamb was able to obtain support. The same thing happened in Braddon.

I heard Senator Colbeck in the chamber earlier this evening complaining about the fact that Labor supporters were on the booths talking to people about the choice that they were facing, because it was clear that on the booths in Braddon when faced with a choice between providing tax cuts to corporations, big banks and big multinationals and providing services—education services, health services and support for people in hard times—people were very clear about what they preferred. I was there on the booths in Braddon. I didn't call out when Senator Colbeck was talking about that, but I spent a day on the booths in Braddon, and it was obvious to me that this is not a community of people who could automatically expect to do well from the global economy. They rely on us to manage the economy and to steward the economy on their behalf, so that they get their fair share—