Dr ALY: I'm going to go out on a bit of a limb here, because we've heard a lot about how this government don't have a plan. I think that's a little bit unfair, because I think they do have a plan. They've got a plan for handing out taxpayer money for political purposes. They've even got spreadsheets—colour coded spreadsheets. That's a plan! They've got a plan for fundraising. They've got a plan for marketing. I still can't get over the fact that one of their mugs was $35, although I did see some toilet paper advertised on Gumtree for $35 as well!
Now, they had a plan for a surplus, but they've kind of let that one go. I mean, they have plans. They have political plans. They have pork-barrelling plans. They have dinner plans. What they don't have is an economic plan. That's what they don't have. They have no plan for the economy. After seven years of this government, they're still standing up and talking about Labor. After seven years of this government the economy is floundering. What do they want to do? They want to blame the coronavirus. The Prime Minister said that the coronavirus is a health crisis with economic implications, but he was at great pains to say there is no problem structurally with the stability of the economy or things of that nature. Well, I'm going to use a quip that I'm quite familiar with: denial is not a river in Egypt!
Honourable members interjecting—
Dr ALY: That was a good one! They want to blame the virus for the state of the economy. But let's take a look at the economy before the virus. Just recently the RBA cut the interest rate for the fourth time.
Mr Tim Wilson: So is the rest of the world!
Dr ALY: As the previous speakers have noted, it's at an all-time low of 0.5 per cent. It's the fourth interest rate cut. I note that the member for Goldstein is interjecting. He would know this because he's the deputy chair of the Standing Committee on Economics and presides over these issues. He would know it's the fourth interest rate cut, right? It's another interest rate cut that is not going to stimulate the economy, because if the last three rates didn't stimulate the economy, this one's not going to stimulate it either. People are going to put the money they save from the interest rate cuts right back into their mortgage because people are suffering mortgage stress, because people have high household debts, because wages haven't gone up and because people don't have the funds for discretionary spending.
The RBA has instigated this monetary policy and used its monetary levers by reducing the interest rate, but for some time now the RBA and businesses have been asking the government and we've been calling on the government to instigate some of those fiscal levers to stimulate the economy and to take responsibility for stimulating the economy instead of putting all the heavy lifting onto the RBA. We have stagnant wages, as I mentioned earlier. People are in insecure work. They have no security and no surety of work. There is underemployment and low household spending coupled with high household debt. Australia needs a fiscal policy that will restore confidence so as to get people spending. I go back to the word 'confidence' and to the use of fiscal policy to restore confidence. Here's something about consumer behaviour: people won't spend money on discretionary goods and services if they have to pay bills, if they don't know where their next pay packet is coming from or how much is going to be in their next pay packet, or if the price of their house has reduced but their mortgage is still high. People in those situations aren't going to go out and spend money in retail. People aren't going to stimulate the economy if all of those other conditions are as they are now. It is a fundamental principle of understanding consumer behaviour. At the same time, business investment is going backwards, labour productivity is denied, net debt has doubled and gross debt has more than doubled. What more evidence do you need of the economic incompetence demonstrated by this government over the last seven years.
The member for Jagajaga spoke about her electorate. I'll talk about my electorate of Cowan. I'll talk about the schools. I'll talk about the food banks. I'll talk about the shops closing down in the suburban shopping centres. I'll talk about the NDIS and the people presenting at my office every day with issues about the NDIS. I'll talk about the lack of training availability. All of these are because this government continues to fail the Australian people through having no plan.
ENDS
