Bill Shorten says he fears cuts will leave Australians 'stranded by change'
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Version 0 of 1. Bill Shorten has painted Labor as pro-growth but says he is determined to prevent Australian workers becoming “victims” of a changing economy in a speech that tried to flesh out his alternative to the government’s hard line against “corporate welfare”. The Labor leader also set out some pre-budget “tests” for the Coalition’s economic policy, including that it achieve its promise to create a million jobs within five years, that Australia keeps its AAA credit rating and that the government keeps its pledge that tax will not increase as a percentage of GDP. The major parties are wrangling over the starting point for the 13 May budget’s calculations – the prime minister told his party room the budget was a “cataclysmic mess” and the treasurer has identified a “spending tsunami” of Labor programs that hit the budget just beyond the four years of existing forecasts, while Labor has had the government’s calculations redone using different assumptions to claim the picture is not nearly so bleak. But the opposition leader’s speech to the National Press Club was more about setting out Labor’s economic “narrative” and defining himself as an alternative leader. It did not reveal where Labor would make different spending cuts or any alternative policy. Shorten said Labor had to boost membership and reach out to small business, science, women and regional Australia, but his main message was that the Coalition was making the wrong call in its determination to cut spending and its refusal to step in with government assistance for companies and industries in trouble. “I have … seen the consequences of people being left stranded by change,” he said. “Too often these are the people who can least afford to lose out: older Australians, Australians on a fixed income, Australians with fewer transferrable skills and Australians with disabilities. “Governments cannot turn back the tide – but they can choose whether they make change work for people. A government’s priorities can determine whether people are the victims of change – or its beneficiaries. “That is why the choices the government must make in its upcoming budget are so important. There is a bleak, hopeless brand of Darwinism that argues adapting to economic change requires deep cuts to services, longer unemployment queues, lower wages and lower levels of government support. We utterly reject this. “In the last six months Tony Abbott has failed to show leadership on how to handle change for all.” Shorten insisted that, unlike Abbott, he was “not a hater” and not attracted to the “nasty, penny-pinching politics of fear and division”, saying he had respect for conservatives. “I admire the sheer persistence of John Howard. And I do have respect for Tony Abbott – of course I do. But that doesn’t mean I have to agree with him – or imitate his idea of leadership. “Tony Abbott has always been a political brawler. It’s his strength – I acknowledge that.” He then attacked Abbott’s signature policies on paid parental leave and “Direct Action” against climate change. “Both involve extravagant rewards for small sections of the community and both were conceived purely as a political fix,” he said, describing Direct Action as an attempt “to give a veneer to the Coalition’s book-burning climate change denialism”. Asked about Labor’s links with the union movement as the royal commission into union corruption begins hearings, Shorten repeated that Labor would be co-operating with the inquiry and that he would soon have more to say about “modernising” Labor’s relationship with the union movement. |