Page 1727 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 15 May 2019
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
and a sustainable and accessible housing market. This progress requires that all sectors of the economy—business, workers, consumers, governments and more—are engaged.
Developing policy that aligns with these interests is more complicated than targeting policy favours to large businesses and property owners on the assumption that their enhanced prosperity will trickle down to the rest of the economy or that increasing their already large property portfolios will make life better for renters.
Since the Liberals took office in 2013 they have presided over one of the weakest economic periods since the end of the Second World War. We have seen the lowest wage growth, only two per cent. Ten of the 12 economic indicators for a healthy economy have decreased over this time. When the 11 postwar governments were ranked according to these economic indicators, the government came dead last in four cases, second last in three more and fell within the bottom half of governments, ranking them no higher than seventh.
It is quite hard to know where to begin when talking about the economic failures of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government. Their economic narrative should start with the cruel and extreme 2014 budget. They gutted our public institutions and attacked our most vulnerable. Morrison’s 2019 budget is an extension of this rabid IPA ideology, destroying our progressive tax system in this country. The Liberals’ tax cuts, the centrepiece of their election promises, will only benefit the rich, with $87 billion for those earning over $180,000 and nothing for those on Newstart.
The Liberal government shriek about wasteful spending, referring to welfare, our hospitals and our schools, yet they give away taxpayer money to the wealthiest people in Australia by giving tax concessions for people to negatively gear their investment properties which do not contribute to the economic growth of this country.
When looking at any of the economic indicators that have a real-world impact on Australian lives, the Liberals fall short. If you want to understand why owning a home is so hard in this day and age it is because under the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government electricity prices have gone up 15 per cent, child care up 24 per cent and private health insurance premiums up 34 per cent at the same time that wages have increased by only two per cent, on average, since 2013, the lowest since the end of the Second World War.
The household savings ratio is currently lower than it was during the GFC. Underemployment has hit record highs, with 1.8 million Australians looking for a job or for more work. But—and this is a very important but—while in the past 20 years rent has increased broadly in line with wages, house prices have definitely not. This tells me one thing and one thing only—it is not that we do not have enough housing stock in this country and this city but that our tax system has distorted the housing market and working people are getting left behind when it comes to home ownership.
Then there is this much talked about budget surplus from the federal Liberal government. Liberals are obsessed with a budget surplus because it seems to be the only economic concept they can understand, never mind the fact that the deficit
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video