Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

Today we debate the appropriation bills before us, in which we've seen a lot of big numbers representing lots of spending promises. Unfortunately, this budget from the Morrison governments also contains a lot of hollow promises and missed opportunities, which will be particularly difficult for the country at this time. We've seen net debt reach $703 billion, an extraordinary level, and it's set to grow to over $966 billion—eye-watering numbers—at the end of the forward estimates. This takes us to a trillion dollars of debt. Gross debt, currently over $800 billion, is forecast for get to well over a trillion dollars over the forward estimates, peaking at $1.7 trillion over the decade.

As we debate these budget bills today, we know that we remain in very uncertain times. In addition, we know that this difficulty has been exacerbated by the government's response to the coronavirus pandemic, a response that has simply been too slow, too reactive and too uncoordinated. The government failed to make the tweaks that could have reined in some of that eye-watering debt and failed to target measures more specifically to drill down into parts of our economy. These issues have been evident in every step of the government's response. There can be no doubt, of course, that the government had to stimulate the economy and that parliament had to act to save Australian jobs and keep the economy ticking over. I would have to say that this task would have been made much easier if they hadn't taken their eye off the ball in terms of economic management before the pandemic even arrived on the shores of our country.

It's important to recognise that in the initial response by the Prime Minister to the initial suggestion of a wage subsidy—a wage subsidy that, I might add, has been the cornerstone to preventing economic collapse—the Prime Minister said no. He said no to that wage subsidy. He said there was no need for a wage subsidy. And then of course we found that the government had closed parliament and that it was to be closed for five months. They postponed the budget. Then, as the country moved into necessary lockdowns, we saw extremely long queues in our Centrelink offices as thousands and thousands of Australians lost their jobs. Parliament was reconvened, and the government finally accepted the proposition that a wage subsidy was critical to saving our economy in order to save thousands upon thousands of businesses and to support millions of jobs.

I have to say I wasn't surprised at the government's slow response on these issues. After all, they very strongly opposed state border closures. They were slow to support lockdowns that have prevented the spread of the virus and have essentially been at the heart of our economic resilience. In this respect there's nothing more telling than their support for Clive Palmer in his fight against WA's border closures. Four months ago Prime Minister Morrison said that trying to eliminate the virus was not the right strategy. Yet today we find that the states with the most economic resilience are the ones that have been able to virtually eliminate the virus—bar its existence within hotel quarantine, as we quite rightly and properly invite people back to our shores after their struggle to get home. Happily, our state premiers did not listen to the Commonwealth railing against state border closures. As we know, Western Australia closed its borders on 5 April. They've stayed closed and are just starting to tentatively reopen now.

As we reflect on this in the context of this federal budget, I highlight the critical role Western Australia has played in keeping the national economy going. Iron ore exports are at a record high. As we know, our major trading competitor in iron ore has not been so lucky. Brazil under-recognised the significance of the impact COVID-19 would have on its society and its economy. It is experiencing escalating levels of death and impacts on its health system and economy. Inevitably, that has had a very large impact on Brazil's iron ore exports. But, even with WA's iron ore exports propping up our national economy, the Prime Minister and many of his Western Australian Liberal colleagues sided with Clive Palmer in a blatant attack on WA's safe and strong border closures, putting at risk the health and economic wellbeing of Western Australians and in turn the nation.

Today we find that Australia is in a much stronger position than that of other countries across the world. Nations that failed to shut borders and put in place lockdowns to suppress the virus are today in social and economic crisis. We in the Labor Party certainly recognise that lockdowns would have been impossible without both JobKeeper and a big lift in JobSeeker payments. People would have simply had to go to work to make ends meet, and with that would have come the inevitable contagion, from people being unable to adhere to the requirements of the lockdown.

As I drill down into the budget measures further in this speech, let's remember that in this year it is the Australian people who have done the economic heavy lifting here. They've done the heavy lifting in adhering to coronavirus restrictions. Indeed, our nation and its citizens will have a lot of heavy lifting to do in the future to repair the economic damage that has been done to our country in the context of needing to pay down that escalating debt in the long term. The Australian people have made great sacrifices to keep Australia in a safe and strong position and, on that note, Commonwealth budgets should be documents that outline positive strategic direction for the country. They should be about people, not dollars. For the leaders in our parliament, budgets should be about providing an opportunity to give a strong vision for the country; a vision for Australians and a vision for Australia.

But this budget is indeed a big missed opportunity. It represents, yes, pulling a bunch of macroeconomic levers to keep the economy from collapsing and to support people's livelihoods and incomes. But it doesn't do nearly enough to create jobs. I can see this very clearly in the context of my own portfolio areas within the jobactive networks, where the government has been wholly unprepared and disorganised in working out how to triage hundreds of thousands of unemployed people into the jobactive networks and to reform the services that they provide in order to provide people with meaningful support as the economy restructures. In our country we expect unemployment to remain high for just far too long; another 160,000 Australians are expected to be unemployed by Christmas—a trillion dollars of government debt and yet, still, many Australians are being left behind.

In the government's policy announcements we've seen how 298,000 people over the age of 35 were left behind by their deliberate exclusion from the JobMaker hiring subsidies. We have seen no plan for child care and the role that improved equity in child care could provide for our economic recovery. There's no plan for a fix to our aged-care sector. The extra home-care places in this year's budget, as we know, are but a drop in the ocean compared to the waiting lists today. And we also know that the crisis in our aged-care system in respect of COVID-19 was made much worse by this government's neglect of the sector for too long. The low wages in this sector have certainly contributed to the circumstances of the virus being transmitted.

There's no plan for the future of JobSeeker recipients—1.4 million people have a very uncertain future as to whether they will go back to the old rate of $40 a day and, as we know, the government seems to be planning to deliver just that. There's no plan for energy security and certainty coming from this government, something that has long beleaguered our country and impeded its economic development and progress. That's because of that policy uncertainty. It's most definitely not an uncertainty that we can take forward with us into the future as we try to work as a nation to emerge out of the economic impacts of COVID-19.

Let's not forget how this government has put the boot into future university students and young Australians when you absolutely took the scissors to our university sector via your so-called funding reforms. At a time when you said you wanted to support young people and their mental health, a time when universities were encouraged to make early offers to students, it's particularly galling that students accepted places at universities without knowing about the astronomical fee hikes they would face. Somehow it was okay to do that to the young people of today. This government has absolutely failed to understand that our nation needs to be a smarter nation and a stronger nation on the other side of economic recovery. You failed to recognise that the aspiration of young Australians to seek better opportunities through education should be absolutely core to this recovery.

In closing my remarks today I really want to give a positive nod to our Labor leader, Mr Anthony Albanese. In his budget reply, he outlined a really positive vision for Australia, a vision that acknowledged the significant hardships that many Australians are facing. He recognised their aspiration to emerge stronger from this economic recession and outlined the critical role that an Australian government can and should play in economic recovery. It's a plan that I'm proud of, and it's a plan that holds true to the values of the Australian Labor Party. As I reflect on the missed opportunities of this year's federal budget, I look forward into the future to the Labor Party's role in continuing to support the economic wellbeing and social wellbeing of all Australians.