Page 1718 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 15 May 2019
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Mr Coe: On a point of order, on relevance, this is about the ACT property sector. I spent the vast majority of my speech talking about 3(a), (b), (c), (d), (e), (f) and (g). Mr Barr just said he is going to give a reflection on Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison. I did not mention either of them. They are not mentioned in the speech. I am curious as to how this could possibly be relevant to my motion.
MR BARR: On the point of order, Madam Assistant Speaker—if you could stop the clock, please—the first point of Mr Coe’s motion, which is what we are debating, is the importance to the ACT of having a commonwealth government that is a good economic manager. If I cannot talk about the importance to the ACT of having a commonwealth government that is a good economic manager, I do not know the point of having such a motion. It is not what you say in your speech; it is the motion that we are debating.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ms Orr): Members, I do not believe there is a point of order. Mr Barr has also moved an amendment, and I believe he is speaking to that amendment. Mr Barr, please continue.
MR BARR: As I was mentioning, penalty rates have been cut, budget forecasts for economic growth, household consumption and wages growth have failed to be met year on year, and the latest WPI data out again shows anaemic wage growth here in Canberra, particularly in the public sector dominated by the commonwealth government, but across the nation.
One of the defining issues in this campaign is getting wages moving again. And we know because Mathias Cormann said so. It was a deliberate economic tactic. He said so on Sky News, the bible of right-wing politics in this nation, where you go to show just how much of a right-winger you are. You go on Sky News to beat your chest to show how much of a right-winger you are, to worship at the altar of the right-wing media in this country. That is where you go. And Mathias Cormann said it was a deliberate design of coalition economic policy to suppress wages. We are seeing the results of that in this city and everywhere else year on year.
This week was the fifth anniversary of that infamous 2014 budget in which Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison and Joe Hockey tried to introduce the $7 GP tax, to increase the age for the pension to 70 years, to cut $57 billion from Australia’s hospitals and $30 billion from our schools. Some of these cuts, because they were blocked in the Senate, have now been reversed in part, but their impact is still being felt right across Australia’s states and territories today. I remember the then New South Wales Premier. Mike Baird, describing it as a kick in the guts for New South Wales, just as it was a kick in the guts for the ACT and the other states and territories.
This, of course, all happened after that famous promise from the then Leader of the Opposition and soon-to-be prime minister, Tony Abbott, that there would be no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS. Remember that! It is so long ago, so many prime ministers ago, so many Liberal Party coups and internal ructions ago, but that is what we are
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