Kimberley Kitching (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Government Accountability) Share this | Hansard source

Those opposite are now in a third term of government. They have been in control of the nation's economy for six years. That's six long years for the Australians who are working longer and harder but just can't seem to get ahead. Like a bird trapped in an oil slick, the harder they work, the more they try, the more they 'have a go'—to quote the Prime Minister—the worse their situation seems to become. The economy is floundering. It has all but ground to a standstill; 'moribund' is another description. The economy is growing at its slowest rate since the global financial crisis. Wages have flatlined. Almost two million Australians are looking for work or cannot get enough hours of work. The nation's productivity is going backwards, and this is having real world effects on people's living standards.

These are not abstract measures. Australians are hurting. And all the while the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the Minister for Finance, day in, day out, give their Pollyanna pronouncements that, 'You've never had it so good.' Tell that to Australians who are choosing between paying record electricity bills and buying their kids school essentials. These are the children, by the way, to whom this government is leaving the legacy of paying down the debt that this government doubled. Remember, federal government debt is now more than half a trillion dollars. The government, with the Greens political party—who I like to think of as the party of all care and no responsibility—voted to remove the debt ceiling. And what was the consequence of that? The federal government debt is now at more than half a trillion dollars. This is the government that would tell you that they naturally occupy the treasury bench. They are not good economic managers, and they have not been so in their various terms of government. Tell that to the anxiety ridden workers who are terrified about job security. Tell that to families who are struggling with the increasing cost of child care.

This is a government that may have a political plan—and we're seeing that with the reprosecuting of legislation from the last term—but it doesn't have an economic plan. The Treasurer is playing roulette with the livelihoods of the Australian people. He is so desperate to have a surplus recorded against his name that he's willing to put the whole economy, not to mention the aspirations of Australians, at risk in order to do so. God forbid there's a downturn in resource prices! And let's face it: with the Vale mine now going back online and increasing its production, what we're going to see is that the iron ore prices that have kept our economy going will start dipping. We've actually built our economy on a disaster in a Brazilian valley, which killed about 300 people earlier this year. Iron ore, priced at $72 a tonne at the time of the lethal sludge slide, started steadily increasing as Vale's production slipped. It reached about $122 a tonne. It's since dipped to $91 a tonne, but this is still 65 per cent higher than the $55 a tonne forecast by Treasury for the current financial year. When Vale comes fully back online, iron ore prices are going to start dipping and our economy will go further backwards than it already has.

The Reserve Bank governor, Dr Philip Lowe, has already warned that the Reserve Bank is not able to jump-start the ailing economy alone. They are not able to do it by themselves. The RBA has already cut interest rates to one per cent, many times lower than we experienced during the darkest depths of the global financial crisis. Dr Lowe has called on the government to intervene—a call that has been repeated by Labor—to bring forward planned infrastructure spending, increase Newstart payments to some of the most vulnerable, and stop attacking our industrial relations system, which protects workers from exploitation and ensures that they are treated fairly. It is, after all, the unions who uncovered the mass exploitation of workers, particularly in the hospitality industry.

If this government were serious about stimulating the economy and promoting economic growth, we on this side of the chamber would be happy. We are not in government, but we would be very happy if the government were to take on the responsibility that comes with sitting on the treasury bench. But it has not done so. This is a government with no agenda and no plan for the country. They went to the election with the promise of a tax cut— (Time expired)