Senator AYRES (New South Wales) (16:05): At the request of Senator Gallagher, I move: That the Senate— (a) notes that: (i) economic growth is the slowest it has been since 2008 when Labor navigated Australia through the global financial crisis, (ii) wages growth has hit record lows, (iii) 1.8 million Australians are looking for work or for more work to combat the rising cost of living and increasing pressures on their household budgets, (iv) living standards and productivity are going backwards, and (v) the Morrison Government has no plan to deal with the domestic economic challenges, leaving us unnecessarily exposed to global shocks, and to support Australians struggling to meet their weekly costs; and (b) calls on the Federal Government to properly outline an economic plan that supports the floundering economy and better safeguards it from global risks, done in a fiscally-sustainable way, which could include: (i) delivering more infrastructure spending now to maintain jobs and stimulate economic growth, (ii) bringing forward part of the income tax cuts scheduled to commence on 1 July 2022, (iii) reviewing and responsibly increasing Newstart to put more money in the pockets of those most likely to spend it in the economy, (iv) implementing the Australian Investment Guarantee to incentivise and boost business investment, and (v) developing an urgent and comprehensive plan to boost wages, starting with restoring penalty rates. I rise to support the motion. I believe that it outlines the context of our current economic moment. Economic growth is the slowest it has been since the global financial crisis. Wage growth is at a record low. There are 1.8 million Australians looking for work or looking for more work. Living standards and labour productivity are going backwards. Our economy is in a malaise, and the government are oddly mirroring that malaise. They all look so bored. Following the recent election, they're like the dog that caught the car. Nobody embodies this malaise more than the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Cormann, the Minister for Finance. In my observation Senator Cormann is a man who needs a plan, but the government simply don't have a plan. They used to; the 2014 budget was their plan. It was a bad plan and it was a plan that was thoroughly rejected by the Australian people, but at least it looked like a plan. It was Senator Cormann's plan. He loved the plan. Remember how happy he looked on the news, puffing on his cigar with the long-forgotten former member for North Sydney? The budget was a fulfilment of Senator Cormann's reason for coming into public office: to dramatically reduce the size of government. It was a British Conservatives-style austerity program and it was designed to entrench poverty and disadvantage. We should try and remember what was in the 2014 budget: the Medicare co-payment; increasing the pension age to 70; cuts to schools and hospitals; kicking people under 25 off Newstart; the deregulation of universities—Senator Rennick might remember the $100,000 degrees; ending subsidies to the car industry, with 40,000 jobs in the Australian car industry gone since that budget; and cutting programs like Landcare in half. It was economic vandalism. But, more importantly, it was cruel. It shows us what the modern Liberal Party really are and the values that drive them—vicious, nasty and without the moral imagination to consider how their vision of society would treat the most vulnerable. There's a spectre haunting the Morrison government—the spectre of poor old Senator Cormann. You can see the sadness in his eyes when you look across the chamber. He misses the certainty of a plan. His housemate, Peter Dutton, seems to have coped okay. People on this side assumed that Senator Cormann's sadness was the result of his humiliation 12 months ago. But I think, having sat here for a few months now, it's because he misses the certainty of a plan. Mr Dutton, the member for Dickson, seems to be okay. He's moved on. He's hitting the gym. I think, when Senator Cormann returns to the flat that they share, the member for Dickson will be there playing video games, living life large. He even appears in ads for white-supremacist car dealerships. Is there a more perfect avatar for the hard Right of the Liberal Party than a white-supremacist car dealership owner? Minister Cormann isn't adapting. He doesn't have any hobbies. He still feels that itch, that pathological drive for social Darwinism that defines that part of the Liberal Party. The government don't have a plan. They no longer seem to have any real ambition for the country. But the values that drive them are just as cruel as those that drove the 2014 budget. This week, the Prime Minister refused to meet with a delegation of Newstart recipients. He refuses to raise the rate of Newstart or even consider a review. Even though almost every stakeholder group in the Australian community knows that Newstart must be raised, he considers that 'unfunded empathy'. In doing so, not only has he ignored calls from charities and groups such as ACOSS; he's ignored the advice of John Howard, the business community, every non-government organisation worth its salt and many people on his own backbench. Working-class people who can't find a job desperately need Newstart to be raised. Our economy desperately needs some stimulus and our economy desperately needs a plan. But the Morrison government's solution to the indignities of unemployment and underemployment—indignities that Senator Cormann has never suffered—and the indignity of being excluded by an economy that's left large parts of the Australian community behind is to force unemployed people to do drug tests. The Australian people deserve leadership that's capable of responding to the economic crisis that we face to imagine a country that gives dignity and empathy to those who need it the most. That means recognising the condition that the Australian economy is in. It's the new normal for the Australian economy. Economic growth is the slowest it has been since 2008. Many economists say—and it's a matter of public record—that, while our growth is so anaemic, it is only being sustained by population growth and, if it weren't for that population growth, the Australian economy would be in recession. We are, indeed, today in a per capita recession. Wages growth has hit record lows, and this government has no economic plan to deal with it and no wages policy to overcome the challenge. The 1.8 million Australians looking for work, or for more work, are struggling to put food on the table and to pay rent or their mortgages. Living standards and productivity continue to go backwards. There isn't an index that's pointing in the wrong way that the Minister for Finance, Senator Cormann, won't quibble with, argue with and challenge. But when the government were confronted with the HILDA report that showed that living standards are decreasing and that household income is decreasing and has been decreasing now for quite some time the silence was deafening. The silence was followed by an obscurantist attempt to try to deny the real truth of the position that was in front of them. What ought to happen is that the government ought to realise that what they have in front of them is an economic emergency, that it requires action, that it requires capability and that it requires a plan. The Labor Party in opposition, for its part, has put forward a plan—and it's a plan that deserves the consideration and support of the Senate and the government—to bring forward infrastructure funding, deliver more infrastructure funding, make sure that jobs are sourced locally, bring forward part of the income tax cuts scheduled to commence on 1 July 2022 and review and responsibly increase Newstart so that people on Newstart can have some dignity. One thing we know is that expenditure on Newstart will flow straight back into the Australian economy and be spent in the supermarkets and on the high streets of every country town across Australia. And we would develop and deliver an urgent plan to boost wages, starting with restoring penalty rates.