My question is to the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, an assistant minister representing a Prime Minister and government who are letting Australians down. Instead of helping Australians to get ahead, they are cutting education, health care and infrastructure—the investments that Australians need to build better lives for themselves and their families. Instead of managing the economy to boost living standards, they are presiding over the weakest economic growth since the global financial crisis. Instead of offering policies to meet the challenges of the future, all they can do is play student political games of wedge politics.
This is a government which is striking in its complete lack of a positive agenda. They have no policies for meeting the big challenges of the future like climate change and energy, the impact of technological change on the workforce, the need to boost productivity and economic growth, and rising social and economic inequality. They have no agenda for building a better Australia. What we have is an out-of-ideas government led by a Prime Minister obsessed with wedging Labor and bashing the trade union movement rather than governing for all Australians. We have a Prime Minister who got the top job by knifing his predecessor, Malcolm Turnbull, and whose election campaign was built on misleading scare campaigns about Labor's policies.
The government are in a state of denial over the weak state of the Australian economy. Their inaction is leaving Australia exposed at a time of global economic uncertainty. The latest national accounts show that, in the year to June, Australia's GDP grew at its slowest pace since the global financial crisis 10 years ago—just 1.4 per cent in real terms. Slower growth means lower living standards, fewer jobs and less opportunity. It means wages are stagnant. There are 1.8 million Australians who are looking for more work or work in the first place, and living standards are under pressure.
The economic indicators are clear. When the Liberals came to office in 2013 Australia was the eighth-fastest-growing OECD economy. Today we have dropped to 20th. Middle Australians living standards have fallen. The median Australian household income is lower in real terms today than when they came to office in 2013. Let me repeat that: Middle Australia has lower living standards now than when the government were first elected in 2013. Business investment as a share of GDP is around its lowest level since the early 1990s. Productivity, which is the driver of improvements in living standards long term, has actually declined over the last year. So we've got poor business investment, 1.8 million people wanting work or looking for more hours, living standards actually falling and declining productivity—this is a recipe for stagnation. The government are in denial about this, just as they are in denial about the need to take action on climate and energy policy.
Climate change is a challenge which will have serious effects on future generations of Australians. Some of them are marching tomorrow to protest those impacts. Yet this government has washed its hands of serious action to tackle climate change by reducing Australia's greenhouse gas emissions. The countries of the world came together at the Paris climate conference in 2015 and agreed to take action to limit the global temperature increase to well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The scientific advice is that to achieve this goal will require reducing carbon dioxide emissions to net zero by 2050, yet this government has no target for 2050, and its target for 2030 is woefully inadequate. It will use Kyoto accounting tricks to water down its inadequate target even further. The government's own figures show that, in 2030, emissions in Australia will be only seven per cent below 2000 levels, despite its commitment to achieving at least minus 26 per cent. It has no policies for actually delivering on the emissions reduction commitments it has made, so it's hardly surprising that, under this government, emissions are going up, not down.
The list of areas where this government is letting Australians down goes on: failing to deliver on infrastructure promises; washing its hands as low-paid workers see their penalty rates cut; putting caps on NDIS that are hurting vulnerable people; ignoring age pensioners' concerns about deeming rates; and failing to enforce its own standards of ministerial integrity. These are all signs of a Prime Minister who puts the coalition's political self-interest ahead of the national interest, ignoring the concerns of ordinary Australians and ignoring the long-term challenges this nation faces.
My question to the assistant minister is this: with the rate of economic growth falling to its lowest level since the global financial crisis, why is this government playing wedge politics in this parliament instead of bringing forward an agenda to boost living standards, productivity and economic growth?
YOu can view my speech here