Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

There were so many straw men from Senator Urquhart and Senator Brown that I was wondering whether we were in Oz rather than Australia. There are a couple of real fallacies in the proposition that those opposite have put forward in this bill, and I'll address them both. One is the issue of inequality and equality itself. There are some real fallacies around that. There's some real cherrypicking of the data, some deliberate misunderstanding of the economics of equality and inequality and a misuse, politically, of those, which is why Senator Stoker was exactly right when she described this as just more of the politics of envy from those opposite.

The other serious fallacy we have here is that the Productivity Commission is in any way constrained in looking at these issues. In fact, the Productivity Commission has looked at these issues very recently and in great detail. The Productivity Commission was central to the creation of the NDIS. At the core of the Productivity Commission report was the issue of equality and access to services in our economy by people with a disability. The idea that the Productivity Commission is hamstrung in any way is such a nonsense that it reveals what is at the core of this bill and what the reason is that this bill is being put forward by those opposite. That reason is that it plays into their very tired narrative of class warfare, of trying to create divisions in society and of trying to present themselves in a certain way as defenders of the poor when, in actual fact, what this government knows, and what this government has acted on very clearly, is the clear knowledge that opportunity is vital. Jobs and work are a source of opportunity and dignity for people, and creating jobs is the most valuable thing that an economy can do for all its citizens.

So what does the Productivity Commission do? The Productivity Commission is tasked to:

… conduct public inquiries at the request of the Australian Government on key policy or regulatory issues bearing on Australia's economic performance and community wellbeing.

Community wellbeing is what the Productivity Commission is tasked to look at. The idea that the Productivity Commission does not look at issues of equality and inequality when looking at economic issues is a blatant effort to mislead. It's just a nonsense, as I've said. The Productivity Commission has a long and proud track record of tackling issues that have proven to be very difficult. It has cast light on serious economic inefficiencies in our society and has given governments of all colours a chance to address serious issues about the economic structure of Australia— to improve that structure to give more people an opportunity and to give more people the chance to get a job and live their lives to their maximum potential. The Productivity Commission should not be interfered with in a political way, as this bill seeks to do. It pushes a particular line that is currently the flavour of the month with the Labor Party but adds very little to the debate on the future of the Australian economy—the future of helping the most people make the most out of their lives.

One of the key points that's been missed here—and I believe it was Senator Brown who talked about this—is that Australia is not a land of extremes. I agree with that. Australians in the main take a very middle-of-the-road approach to these things. But, in that light, it's important to always remember that the top 10 per cent of taxpayers actually pay 45 per cent of the income tax collected. I've said it before in this place, and I'll repeat it: the top 10 per cent of taxpayers pay 45 per cent of the income tax collected. We have a highly redistributive economy from those who can to those who need the assistance. After taking into account government benefits, 45 per cent of households do not pay any net tax. We have a highly redistributive system that enables a society that is fair and that gives people opportunity, and that is something that all Australians value. But if you listened to those opposite, you'd think the opposite was the case; you'd think that the top 10 per cent of taxpayers pay 10 per cent of income tax when, in actual fact, the pay 45 per cent.

Those on this side understand that the quickest way to equality of opportunity, to people realising the most out of their lives, is to be able to get off welfare and get into a job. That's why we've done things like reinvigorate the Work for the Dole program. There are 71,000 participants. That's why we've trialled things like the cashless welfare card, trying to assist people in breaking cycles of dependency—welfare dependency, alcohol dependency, drug dependency, potentially gambling dependency—to be able to get their lives to some semblance of order so they can move into the workplace, get a job and get the dignity that flows from being at work as well as, obviously, the income.

We recently passed the cashless debit card trial expansion bill, which added the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay region as our fourth trial site and expanded the total number of participants up to 15,000. That's a wonderful opportunity to look at something new in a space that has proven to be very intractable and to try to make some positive change. These are trials. They will be evaluated. Nobody has pretended that cashless debit cards are a silver bullet, but initial reports from the trial sites where it has been ongoing have been positive. I've been to the trial site in the Goldfields a number of times over the past 12 months, and we continue to get very positive reports on the ground. I look forward to seeing the full evaluation of those trial sites in the future. In Bundaberg and Hervey Bay, this is particularly important because it's targeting a younger cadre of people, who are exactly the sort of people we do not want to get locked into a cycle of welfare dependency. It is the most destructive cycle that families can enter, being dependent on welfare for multiple generations. It reduces their opportunities, it reduces their potential for the future and it is a cycle that we need to break, and this government has done some remarkable work in breaking it. Let's just go briefly to the job figures.

When this government came into power, we said we had a goal of creating a million new jobs within five years. In fact, we delivered that, with the economy creating, as of September 2018, 1,144,500 jobs. Over half of these were full-time jobs and the vast majority of all these jobs were in the private sector. These are real jobs for real people that have taken people off welfare, given them hope, given them opportunity, reduced their risk of ongoing welfare dependency and generational welfare dependency, which is so clearly proven to be such a destructive thing for families and individuals. Those one million-plus jobs represent hundreds of thousands of families that now have an opportunity they did not have before those jobs were created.

In 2017 alone, 412,000 more jobs were created, the most jobs created in any calendar year on record. Recent ABS figures show 95,000 jobs for the 15 to 24-year-old age group being added in the year to June 2018—again, the strongest result for a financial year since 1989. This is a track record of really addressing inequality by giving people opportunities, by giving people a chance to change their lives, to get into the workforce. The unemployment rate has declined to 5.3 per cent—the lowest level since 2012, below the levels inherited from the Labor government in September 2017. Youth unemployment is at its lowest level in over six years. Again this is down on the level we inherited in September 2013. We would all love both these rates to be lower. We would all love to see particularly more young people in work. But the fact is that these are very positive numbers and particularly add to a positive trend of creating jobs, getting people off welfare and getting people into work. Senator Brown also talked about gender inequality, but in actual fact recently released statistics show that the gender pay gap continues to narrow, particularly for graduates, so we're seeing clear progress on that area.

I think one of the key things about tackling intergenerational dependency, particularly with at-risk groups, is it not only changes lives—a job changes a family's future—but it also significantly impacts the budget bottom line, which, in turn, frees up money for important things that the government does need to spend money on, and it also frees up money for very important tax cuts to make sure our economy remains efficient.

The latest data released in July 2018 revealed the reduction in the number of people accessing welfare payments has led to a $43 billion decrease in Australia's total future lifetime welfare costs. And I will repeat that number—a $43 billion decrease in total future lifetime welfare costs because of the trajectory that this government has created in our welfare roles. By putting people back into work, we've obviously taken people off welfare and that in turn flows into a budget bottom line improvement of, in this particular area, $43 billion in total lifetime welfare costs. That is a significant amount of money. But it's not just the money that matters. What really matters is the fact that that $43 billion decrease in total future lifetime welfare costs represents individuals and families who have now got a chance in the economy that they did not have before. They've got a chance to break out of the cycle of generational welfare dependency to get them and their families back into a position where they're have much more control over their own lives and are able to play an active part in economic life. That is a very positive thing, and there's plenty of evidence to show that one of the most important things you can have for health, mental health and future opportunities is to be in the workforce.

When we're talking about inequality, it is important again to recognise the fact that Labor are running what is a highly political line in this area. So, they can't pretend they come to this with clean hands and, 'Oh, it's just about giving the Productivity Commission the power to look at inequality, a power that clearly it already has.' They are running a highly political line trying to reinvent and reinvigorate class warfare and the politics of envy that, quite frankly, I thought had been relegated to the long-distant past.

The fact that we're back having the same debates that were had in the 1970s is almost too hard to believe, but that's where we are with the current Labor Party. We are pretending that the current level of redistribution in the economy isn't there when, I'll say it again: 10 per cent of taxpayers pay 45 per cent of income tax. We're trying to pretend that we don't have an economy that is heavily geared towards giving people a chance for support while they get their lives back in order and get a job. We ignore the fact that this government's created a million jobs-plus, giving people opportunity and hope by doing so. Instead, we play the class warfare card; we play the politics of envy.

The McKell Institute and the ACTU have both recently released reports about rising inequality in Australia. The McKell report claims that inequality in Australia is at a 75-year high, and I believe that statistic was quoted by one of the senators opposite earlier today. Again, this is a completely meaningless indicator of outcomes—a 75-year high. When my dad was a boy, and I talked about this last week, he rode a horse to school. There was no electricity on the farm. What there was we generated ourselves. The idea of having an electric refrigerator was something that was a dream well into the future. Go back 10 generations and a very large part of society was actually growing the food they needed to live.

How do you judge equality or inequality in a society where one person theoretically owns or controls everything in that society, which is exactly what you had under absolute monarchs and was the norm not that many generations ago. The idea that a simple measure of equality of income which takes into account nothing to do with standard of living and nothing to do with access to goods and services in society—like Medicare, a free education system, access to health, access to many services in society that we all support—we all take for granted to some degree. But we have to factor these things in when we're talking about equality. We cannot simply look at basic measures of income which reveal nothing about the way people live their lives. It's only 20 years ago that none of us had a mobile phone to use in the way that we use them today. It's extraordinary to think how things have changed just in the last 20 to 30 years. If you go back even—we're talking about the McKell report—75 years, it was a completely differently structured economy and a completely different level of opportunity and standard of living. That is not taken into account by this rhetoric of envy, this rhetoric of class warfare or this rhetoric of the haves and the have-nots and the big end of town. The methodology involved in these kinds of reports ignores non-monetary transfers, provision of health care, provision of education and provision of infrastructure. This government is investing $75 billion into infrastructure. It completely ignores that and all the other services that are provided by government.

What are some of the other lines that are being run? One is that the minimum wage is declining. That is demonstrably false. Since 1998 the minimum wage has increased by more than 20 per cent in real terms. In fact, Australia has the second-highest minimum wage in the OECD. There's also plenty of data that says that wealth inequality in Australia is not rising. There's a recent report from Credit Suisse saying that Australia has the third-most equal distribution of wealth in the developed world, behind only Japan and Belgium. I said this last week and I will say it again: this is hardly a crisis. The facts do not support the conclusion that inequality is on the rise in Australia. This bill is just another signalling attempt from those opposite to try and raise these issues to try and raise an ugly class-warfare mentality back into the Australian political debate which, I think, we'd all hoped had been well and truly relegated to the past.