Dave Sharma (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today.

What we heard today was a government in denial about the scale of economic challenges that Australia is facing. We had Senator Canavan ask Senator Gallagher about business insolvencies being at a four-year high. We had Senator Dean Smith ask questions about the size of public sector spending, now at a high of 27.3 per cent in the quarter, and the role of public sector spending in contributing to inflation. But what we heard from Senator Gallagher was that the facts don't support that, that the RBA was being misquoted and that public demand was being demonised, and she was trumpeting a headline inflation figure.

It has taken me a while to figure out the meaning of this term 'gaslighting', but after a lot of discussion with my children I think this was a textbook example of gaslighting—telling not only those of us on this side of the chamber but the Australian public that their lived reality, their lived experience, of higher electricity prices, of higher inflation, of deteriorating living standards, of lower disposable income and of higher interest rates is not actually true. We had Senator Gallagher say that COSBOA's figures were wrong, that the RBA didn't say what they said, that the Productivity Commission, which has been warning about these things, was also wrong and that, indeed, the everyday lived experience of Australians was wrong.

Let's look at the facts here. Insolvency rates in Australia right now are 25 per cent higher than they were prior to the pandemic—5.04 per cent in October. That means that one in every 20 businesses has been failing over the last 12 months. CreditorWatch expects this to rise to 9.1 per cent in the next 12 months—that is, one in every 11 business will be at risk of failure. Senator Gallagher's answer was: 'The facts don't support that.' We've now seen public sector spending reach a record of 27.3 per of GDP in the June quarter. The average size of public sector spending in the decade prior to the pandemic was 22.5 per cent. So we've seen government spending massively increase.

Senator Gallagher was trumpeting employment growth. Well, of the 209,000 jobs created in the first half of 2024, fully one in two of them was a public sector job. In normal economic conditions, in normal economic times, six in seven jobs are private sector jobs and one in seven is a public sector job. Instead, one in two of those jobs created are in the public sector. We've seen 26,000 more permanent APS staff added to the payroll, adding $5 billion annually to the government's wages bill.

Real household disposable income has declined eight per cent in Australia since the first quarter of 2022. That's why everyone is feeling worse off: because they're paying more in taxes, because inflation is eating up more of their after-tax income and because interest rates are higher. That is the worst performance in the OECD, if you look back over the last 2½ years. In the US, for instance, real household disposable income has increased by three per cent since the first quarter of 2022. In Australia, it's gone backwards by eight per cent. That's why people feel like we're in a recession: because we've had six consecutive quarters of negative real GDP per capita growth. The only thing that is keeping the economy ticking over, in notionally positive terms, is record-high immigration.

We have core inflation at 3½ per cent—still stubbornly high. Senator Gallagher was trumpeting the headline inflation rate. The RBA has been very clear that they are looking at the core or underlying inflation rate when they are looking at interest rate settings, and we just had Michele Bullock, the Governor of the RBA, warn earlier this month, publicly, about the inflationary implications of the government's own policy—a shot across their bows. Yet we didn't have Senator Gallagher ruling out massive handouts or spending sprees prior to the election. Instead, she focused on a policy that the government should be embracing—zero emissions nuclear energy—but which, instead, they are shunning.

So we have a government here which has no answer to inflation, no answer to the challenges of homeownership, no answer to the productivity challenge, no answer to high electricity prices—and, incidentally, no reduction in emissions. It contests what the RBA says, what COSBOA says, what the Business Council of Australia says, what the Productivity Commission says—indeed, what everyday Australians say about how tough living conditions are. Its only answer is some sort of alternative reality where we are told that Australians have never had it so good. Their experience is quite the opposite.

Jana Stewart (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We know, on this side of the chamber, that Australians are doing it tough. It's something that we have been taking very seriously since we came into government 2½ years ago, and we've been working every day to reduce the pressure that Australian families are under. That job is certainly not made easier by the previous coalition government and the numerous gifts that they left the Australian people with—gifts like debt, inflation, declining real wages and energy insecurity; gifts that nobody wants to receive for Christmas. This is the same economy that they left for small businesses, who they purport to care so much about.

Despite these constraints, the Albanese Labor government has picked up the pieces and delivered two successive budget surpluses. We've begun to pay down the Liberal debt, while reducing inflation to its lowest in four years. We've put significant effort and time into easing the pressures felt by Australian families. From 1 July 2024, every taxpayer received a tax cut—not just some, as was planned by the Morrison government. We are putting more money back into the pockets of Australians. Australians have saved more than half a billion dollars in cheaper medicines since September last year. To ensure you aren't paying more at the check-out, we've initiated an ACCC inquiry into the supermarket sector. The ACCC will provide their final report in early 2025.

Those opposite often misled Australians about the economy, but they were telling you the truth when they told you, in 2019, that wage stagnation was a deliberate design feature of the coalition government. And you can expect more of that if a Dutton government is elected.

On this side of the chamber, a Labor government could not be more different. Australians deserve strong bargaining rights and strong wages. Through successive rounds of reform to the Fair Work Act we've rebalanced industrial relations, allowing real wages to grow in each quarter of the last year. Peter Dutton has opposed increasing wages and tax cuts so the average worker will be almost $4,000 worse off. That is you, the average worker, $4,000 worse off under Dutton. He opposed power bill relief so the average household would be $300 worse off. How can you oppose power bill relief for every Australian? It is absolutely insane that you would want Australians to be paying more on their energy bills, but that's exactly what happened in this chamber. He voted against making medicines cheaper.

In fact, the average household will be around $7,600 worse off under a Dutton government. That is absolutely what you can count on under a Dutton government. The coalition have said that they want to wind back $315 billion of government spending. That includes cuts to the public service—services that you rely on, whether it's Medicare or Centrelink or aged-care services. They want you waiting months for your passport, apparently. Don't worry about your holiday! The Australian Bureau of Statistics recently said that electricity prices fell 17.9 per cent in the 12 months to August, thanks to the energy bill relief of the Albanese Labor government that you voted against. This is the largest annual fall for electricity on record. On record.

The Albanese Labor government understands what it takes to sensibly manage the Australian economy while looking after you. That's why we have introduced cheaper child care and made health care more accessible. To moderate inflation and grow the economy, we need a thriving and modern workforce. Those opposite have ignored the economic realities that are right in front of them. After almost a decade of doing nothing to confront Australia's long-term energy insecurity, the previous government left Australians exposed to global interruptions in supply. Now the opposition wants to use their taxpayer money to fund the construction of inefficient nuclear power plants, costing $600 billion for only 4 per cent of energy supply.

Alex Antic (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know that, coming into this chamber, sometimes there seems to be some repetition here, and it gets very repetitious if you're in the chair. I'm sure you appreciate that, Deputy President. One of the things that has been repeated—quite reasonably, in my view—is the number 275. Do you know why? I'll tell you, because you want to ask. The answer is that that is the figure this Labor government promised the Australian people their power prices would drop by prior to the last election, and guess what? Guess what actually happened?

Dave Sharma (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I've got it on my fridge.

Alex Antic (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sharma has it on his fridge, he tells me. He's just sitting there waiting, looking at it, hoping for it to manifest: 'When am I going to get this fabled number? When is it going to come to me?' It didn't happen. It was never going to happen. The more we hear it, the more ludicrous it becomes. In his excellent commentary earlier on, Senator Sharma used the word 'gaslighting', which is a term that I've known for a while. It took him a while—not me. This is the ultimate form of gaslighting because I don't think that Prime Minister Albanese had any feel that would become reality. We have seen why now. The plan was never to encourage a drop in power prices; the plan was to spend as much of your money and my money and Senator Scarr's money as he could in order to prop up this intermittent power Ponzi scheme that we have. Have you heard about this? This is a scheme where you go out and get power from the sun and the wind—except when the shine doesn't go and the wind doesn't blow. Some people call these 'bird choppers', by the way. They do. They call them 'bird choppers'. They chop up birds. Go to the bottom of one of these things and you'll see it's like a bird graveyard. They've got the Holy Trinity: they're expensive, they don't work when the wind's not blowing, and they kill the wildlife. Imagine the left going for this! But here we are and that's where we've got to.

Now we're here, after all this, and today we heard Senator Duniam ask some questions about the comments made by the CEO of the Australian Energy Market Operator. He said, 'I can't guarantee that the prices will be lower under this energy plan.' What a shock it was when we found out that it's actually going to be $642 billion more expensive. We now learn that costs are going to be five times higher than what was originally claimed. That sounds like a bit of gaslighting to me.

We understand that on this side of the chamber. We've set out a plan for bringing energy prices down. It involves nuclear power and it involves gas, obviously. Yet what have we got? We've got Chris Bowen racing around at COP29 looking very excited—he's in with his people and loving it; it's like going to Disneyland—but not actually allowing us to sign up to the nuclear bit. During the previous COP, 31 countries signed up and signed this nuclear agreement; it's true. These COP conferences are where billionaires go to tell millionaires how to tell us to live, by the way. We turn up this year and we're still: 'Oh, I don't know about nuclear power. No-one's ever tried before.' Everyone's tried it. Canada has a $5 billion a year industry—I think it's actually $15 billion; I could be wrong—based on this very technology. 'It's unproven.' But everyone uses it. All of the OECD countries use it; France uses it. 'It's going to poison the landscape.' Well, your French champagne you chug down at the chairman's lounge doesn't seem to bother you, does it? No-one seems to care. They all get into their French champagne and they're like: 'Where's the radiation? Who's got the radiation?' No one's got the radiation, because it's a complete joke.

What we want in this country is cheap power, and there's no plan to get it under this. We've now got proof that the plan is going to cost $642 billion. What we actually need in this country is a department of government efficiency, a DOGE. That is what the Trump administration's going to do. It's brought in Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Elon reckons he can cut $2 trillion from that. I reckon I could do it in about 45 minutes around here. You go to estimates and watch bureaucrats walking around and patting each other on the back, saying: 'Great job. What's your job?' 'I'm in gender diversity.' 'No kidding! Are you really? Wow!' 'What do you do?' 'I'm into bird choppers. I regulate bird choppers. I'm the bird chopper guy.' I reckon I could do it in about 15 minutes—honestly. Give me the job; I'll do it! The Australian DOGE—that'll be me. Anyway, it's going to be too expensive.

Varun Ghosh (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of the answers to the questions asked by Senator Canavan and Senator Dean Smith in relation to productivity and inflation.

By way of context on productivity, I think it's fair to accept that we haven't had significant productivity reform in the two decades to this government. That's a conclusion that's reaffirmed by the comments of the Productivity Commission. The Productivity Commission also told the Senate Select Committee on the Cost of Living in June 2023 that improving productivity growth in Australia requires applying a productivity lens across the entire policy landscape.

Boosting productivity is difficult and takes time. It takes consistent investment. It requires us to improve skills in our economy. It requires us to provide incentives for capital deepening across the economy and it requires competition reform in Australia.

To that first point on education and skills, we need to increase the size of the skilled workforce in Australia. That's both in terms of productivity gains that come from that and also in terms of some of the capacity constraints that are driving some of these inflationary numbers.

One of the things the Reserve Bank have told Senate committees and House committees in the last six months is that while demand remains higher than they expected, it's slightly higher, and public demand's not the main game in that. They've also said that there are significant capacity restraints in the Australian economy, it's that mismatch between supply and demand that drives up inflation.

There are a number of measures that the government's implementing in order to improve productivity through upskilling the Australian workforce, but the best example and the most recent one is the fee-free TAFE program which has been in place since January 2023 and had 508,000 enrolments to 30 June 2024. That's 508,000 new skills put into the Australian economy. To break that down a little more specifically, 131,000 of those placements were in care. 48,900 were in the digital and technological part of the economy, 35,000 were construction related and 35,500 were in early childhood education and care. Six out of 10 of those enrolments went to women and one-third went to regional and remote Australians. That's a policy that improves skills in our economy and that's a policy that the coalition opposes. They oppose it even though they see it's working. They call it wasteful spending and then they have the temerity to come in here and complain about productivity when they oppose one of the main measures that would improve productivity in a fair way in our society.

The second thing I want to talk about is competition reform. This government's approach to a revitalised national competition framework and policy has the potential, according again to the Productivity Commission, to return an additional $45 billion to our GDP and reduce prices across the economy by 1.5 per cent. That's a potential and it's an estimate; I accept that. But there are two things I want to tell you about today. One is merger reform. That is making mergers in our commercial sector quicker, simpler and easier. That's by first removing unnecessary barriers to low-risk mergers—mergers that don't have a significant impact on competition in the market—and second—

The Deputy:

Senator Scarr, do you have a point of order?

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Multicultural Engagement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do. I'm struggling to find out how merger reform is relevant to the answers to questions without notice asked by coalition senators.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Competition reform is a testing to productivity, and I think the questions were of an economic nature, as were the answers.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You're being very generous, Deputy President.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Merry Christmas. Please go on, Senator Ghosh. I'm interested.

Varun Ghosh (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate the ruling, Deputy President, but could I refer to Senator Canavan's question, which said:

Minister, how many more businesses have to fail before this inept government will put forward a credible plan to bring down inflation and boost productivity?

I'm talking about productivity and the plan to do it.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We're taking note of answers, though.

Varun Ghosh (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was part of the answers too, Senator O'Sullivan. Can we also talk about non-compete clauses. They're a cost in the economy, and a proper review of how non-compete clauses operate in employment contracts would significantly add to the Australian economy. It has done so in the United States in the implementation of those policies.

Can I briefly talk about technology investment in that capacity as well. The Tech Council of Australia last week released a report that suggested there's significant opportunity to improve productivity and economic growth in our economy by investing in technology. We accept that much of that investment must come from a private-sector perspective but public sector has a role to play here too. That's where the government's National Reconstruction Fund, a $15 billion fund to help businesses improve their technological capacity, comes into it. That will give us the ability to continue to invest in technologies that improve productivity, drive economic growth and bring down inflation.

This is the broader point. Those opposite oppose these policies and they oppose investment in the economy, and then they come in here and talk about how productivity is languishing. These investments take time. The government's got its priorities right and it's got a plan that's good for our economy.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Multicultural Engagement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note Senator Sharma's admission that he has Labor's promise of $275 per annum off power bills on his fridge. I must say I don't share his decorative habits in terms of my fridge. I've actually got a Thai restaurant menu and also a depiction of the Deputy President on my fridge, Tintin like. You know what I'm referring to there.

There's been some discussion in relation to nuclear power in the course of this debate, and I just want to bring to the attention of this chamber the most recent observations coming out of the COP29 conference. As Senator Antic said, there are 31 nations around the world now who have signed up to triple nuclear power energy generation. Thirty-one nations are looking to triple it—not just to start it but to triple it. And a number of new nations signed up at the last COP29 conference. These include El Salvador, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo and Turkiye. Are we seriously suggesting that all of these countries, including El Salvador, Kazakhstan et cetera, are going down the nuclear power path and Australia shouldn't? Is that the suggestion? I say to this chamber that I believe the greater risk is if the whole world goes down the nuclear power path and Australia doesn't. From my perspective, that is a huge risk. We see at this point in time there are 64 nuclear power reactors being built around the world in 15 different countries. If they can do it overseas, why can't we do it here, with one of the world's most bountiful sources of uranium? Why can't we do it here? We're one of the most geologically stable countries in the world. Why can't we do it in Australia, when we've got the resources and, no doubt, we could quickly develop the know-how?

These are the three additional countries which are going down the nuclear power path: Ghana, Poland, the Philippines. They can do it in Ghana, but we can't do it in Australia? They can do it in Poland, but we can't do it in Australia? They're going down the nuclear power path in our own local region, in the Philippines, and we're not going to do it in Australia? It doesn't make any sense at all. I'm proud to be a part of a coalition which is advocating going down the nuclear power path. As I say, the greater risk is that we don't go down the nuclear power path if the rest of the world does.

Question agreed to.