Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I always enjoy Senator Smith's contributions and listen to them very carefully. I do think his capacity to confect enthusiasm and certitude on this piece of proposed legislation should be an exemplar to all senators today and into the future. It really is a remarkable thing. I don't criticise Senator Smith for bringing this piece of legislation, the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Enhancing Pensioner and Veteran Workforce Participation) Bill 2022, to the parliament but, honestly, we know he didn't draft it. We know it came from somewhere else. If he had drafted it, it would be much more elegantly worded and much more politically sharp. We have a bill that was drafted in the opposition leader's office.

There are three key words in Senator Smith's contribution: 'beginning to hurt'. That's what he said. Cost-of-living pressures are just 'beginning to hurt'. Labor supply issues are just 'beginning to hurt'. They've been a problem for the last 105 days! They didn't exist prior to the last 105 days! They're just 'beginning to hurt'. I just say to senators opposite: when you do go to the government party room, or if you ever knock on the door of the Leader of the Opposition's office and you get in, just say: 'We need a better plan. This isn't going very far. Nobody on earth is convinced, least of all ordinary Australians, that cost-of-living pressures are suddenly a new development that's happened over the last 105 days.'

The Morrison government's approach on these questions is utterly sclerotic. There is no action. Mr Morrison said he didn't want to leave a legacy. He never said a truer word. Nothing the Morrison government did on the cost of living or labour supply troubled the scorers. In fact, as Senator Payne well knows, some of the measures that the Morrison government undertook, particularly during the COVID crisis, rode in exactly the wrong direction.

It's as if this debate over labour shortages and skills shortages and the cost of living occurred only over the last 105 days. It's really been a debate, of course, that's been going for well over the last three years. Where was this proposition in 2019? Where was it in 2020? Where were Senator Smith and his colleagues all through 2021? Where were they on this proposition—generous as Senator Smith describes it—in the first few months of 2022? They were nowhere, of course; they were defending Mr Morrison. You can't find too many of them over there publicly or privately who want to defend Mr Morrison now but they were all up to their ears in it, defending Mr Morrison day in, day out. Senator Smith wasn't doing it very loudly but there he was, you could find him. If pushed, publicly, he would stoutly defend him.

There was zero action on labour supply, zero action on cost of living. In fact, the last government did worse. I will never forget when Mr Morrison sent the message to temporary visa holders to go home. I remember walking around in the Sydney CBD seeing piles of furniture out the front of blocks of flats. You would see food queues—food queues in Australia in 2020, 2021—as people were sent packing, and now these characters want to come in here and complain about skills shortages. Where were they then? They are full of big ideas today but were utterly vacant on big ideas over the last few years.

There was a place for big ideas about our shared national problems in the labour market. It was the last two days of last week. It wasn't a bad place, if you are interested in big ideas about the future of the labour market, the Jobs and Skills Summit that the Prime Minister convened. It was denigrated by Senator Smith but it was a place for big ideas, a place for Australians to work together on some of the big national problems and, if I can say, set the tone. The leadership of the trade union movement was there. Business, large and small, was there. The stakeholders went. Key organisations, they were all there. Experts—people who know things stuff instead of just saying things about stuff—many of them were there; many of them spoke up. All of the states, Labor and Liberal, were there. Mr Littleproud went, good on him; it was the right call. It would have been ridiculous for him not to attend. That's where Australia was. That's where the leadership of corporate Australia—not everyone could get a ticket—was, and many of them participated in the hundred mini summits the government convened in the weeks leading up to the big summit.

Where were Mr Dutton and the Liberal Party? Where were they? Mr Dutton was outside, on the radio and the television, denigrating the participants who went, pouring scorn on the participants who went, trying to encourage a bit of scepticism in the community about the idea that Australians would get together, recognising their own interests but putting the national interest first, and try and deal with some of these questions. Where was Mr Dutton? It was the old Morrison politics of division; that's where he was. I reckon if Senator Smith had been invited he probably would have gone too.

I listened to Senator Cash on Radio National this morning, more of the same nonsense. She wants to denigrate trade unions officials, wants to denigrate the businesses large and small who attended, who are actually coming to grips with some of the challenges that we are facing. It was more reminiscent of a young Liberals' speech. It really made me think how difficult it is in those first months and years facing up to dealing with the legacy of a sclerotic and hopeless government—