Address to the Australian Fabians WA Branch - Perth - Saturday, 21 November 2020

It is an honour to speak to Australia’s, and Western Australia’s, oldest continuous think tank. 

Formed in Australia two years after John Curtin’s death and the end of World War II.

Then a country needing to protect jobs, build new industries and house our population.

Australia today faces similar challenges.

A country in the middle of Asia facing massive economic renewal amid global power shifts.

Navigating this to ensure Australians, maintain and grow their standard of living.

My electorate is full of people who work hard. 

In the mining industry at the head offices of Rio, BHP, FMG and many more. 

In our health system at Royal Perth Hospital.

In our cultural and hospitality industries. The new WA Museum to the stalwart Bayswater Hotel.

Working Australians are proud taxpayers, but that isn’t what drives them.

They work for a sense of fulfilment. They work to provide opportunity to themselves and those around them.

These workers do not describe themselves in political demographics – battlers, aspirational, quiet. 

The demographic descriptors they are more likely to use are “Australian”, “Mum”, “young” or “old”.

Because the people who decide elections do not spend much time thinking about politics.

They have enough on their plate.

But I don’t accept that this makes them “quiet”, naturally conservative or inclined to “Stick with ScoMo”. 

I believe that a smart, energised Labor Party can win these voters and win the next election.

Exhausted Australians 

Today I want to put the case that Labor’s path to winning the next election relies in part on winning the support of exhausted Australians.

 I know that every Australian is exhausted as we come to the end of 2020.

But we can all picture the exhausted Australians I am talking about.

Working families, poor and vulnerable Australians.

People who are disappointed their politicians aren’t role models.

Australians who have a full and busy life.

The ones who have time to run their kids around.

Juggle work and study to reach their next career goal.

Who have spent years struggling to survive on Newstart or with low paid work.

These people don’t attend focus groups, sit on the P&C or comment on political Facebook pages. 

They don’t “just have a chat” when a uni student from a local campaign calls them at 6pm .

I reject Scott Morrison’s thesis that they are “quiet Australians”.

They are a childcare worker who works from before 7am until after 6pm. A shiftworker at Mrs Macs pies in Morley.

Not quiet, just busy.

And Labor is best placed to represent these exhausted Australians. 

While these exhausted Australians don’t actively engage with government.

They haven’t given up on government.

Although, I would argue too often the Liberal Party have given up on them.

Working families are exhausted

Just like in Kevin Rudd’s successful 2007 campaign, working families are the ones who create Labor Governments.

The trade union movement knows this too.

The Your Rights at Work campaign was about maintaining fairness at work so people could have a happy life at home.

Since 2007 we have seen the lines between work and home blur.

And then in 2020 homes became temporary workplaces.

Jobs have followed us home.

People are busier.

Stressed.

Out-of-puff at the end of a busy year. 

And the financial pressure facing exhausted Australians is huge.

Childcare costs have increased 36 per cent since 2013.

For families childcare bills now account for 27 per cent of household income.

Before coronavirus hit, more than 800,000 Australians were working multiple jobs to make ends meet.

1.7 million Australians are now underemployed. 

One in four Australian workers is a casual. Half of those have no guaranteed hours.

38 per cent of Australians who live below the poverty line are actually in work.

Three in five Australians have experienced a mental health condition this year, with some services seeing more than a 70 per cent increase in demand.

Almost 40 per cent of Australian jobs that exist today, are likely to disappear in the next 15 years.

That’s a big list of challenges. 

We know in a limited financial environment the government can’t fix everything. 

But we can fix something.

Labor has chosen to commit to fix childcare.

Our plan invests in our future.

It helps ensure secure jobs.

It builds stronger communities.

It is the single best thing we can do to deliver jobs and growth.

I have said before, Scott Morrison should steal Labor’s policy.

If you don’t understand the financial impacts of the current policy - just ask a working family.

Remove the cap on the childcare subsidy.

So there is always an incentive to work a full week and the full year.

Increase the maximum childcare subsidy to 90 per cent.

Cheaper for 97 per cent of working families.

And we will stop price gouging by asking the ACCC to regulate price.

We can’t fix everything, but for $6.2 billion we can fix childcare.

Poverty is an exhausting way to live

Childcare isn’t the only thing that is broken.

Our mythology about Australia has also become disconnected from reality.

We are “the lucky country” where “If you have a go, you get a go” in our “egalitarian” society.

Even if our society is egalitarian, our economy is not. 

The reality is we have too many poor Australians.

And poor Australians are the most exhausted in our community.

My electorate of Perth has experienced an increase in visual homelessness.

A tent city has emerged.

In the richest state in one of the richest countries in the world. 

This is the visual face of a poverty pandemic.

A poverty pandemic where our neighbours are exhausted in the struggle just to get by.

More than one in six Australian children live in poverty.

148,500 Australian households are on social housing waiting lists.

1.4 million Australians are receiving the JobSeeker payment, with an expected increase to 1.8 million by Christmas.

1.77 million Australian households have taken out payday loans.

One in five pay later customers say they have gone without food because of their debts.

I stood in the centre of Perth last year when Anthony Albanese said we need to increase Newstart.

Well before the COVID Recession. It was the right policy request to make then, it is the right one now.

Anthony’s commitment to the practical alleviation of poverty family by family is unmatched in the Parliament.

It is something that Labor’s Campaign Review told us needed to be a priority. It stated clearly “Low-income workers swung against Labor.”

But how we approach this is important.

The debate about inequality has always bothered me.

The language of inequality leads to a policy focus on those with too much, and those with too little.

It is a debate structured to put Australians against one another.

For this reason I have always preferred John Curtin’s description of Labor as being a Party “For the poor”.

We should say who we are for - not who we are against.

Labor must be unashamedly on the side of those who do not have enough.

The Liberals embrace poverty as the natural order. 

A working poor, a destitute unemployed, intergenerational disadvantage.

Tony Abbott called the unemployed “job snobs”.

In contrast, Scott Morrison quoted Desmond Tutu in his first speech, saying he would “stand on the side of the poor and the hungry, the homeless and the naked”.  

At least Tony Abbott said what he actually thought.

Labor must always stand on the side of the poor.

On the side of exhausted Australians who are working hard and going backwards.

Poverty elimination is about increasing Newstart. It is about social housing. It is about job creation. It is about acting on climate change. 

And poverty elimination must be central to everything we do.

One other exhausted group

Progressive Australians are a bit exhausted too. 

Exhausted with the behaviour that accompanies our parliamentary debate.

At times exhausted from campaigning for their passions - a National ICAC, true reconciliation with Indigenous Australians, stronger unions, investment in education, the list goes on. 

The debate that I find most exhausting in Australian politics is the one on climate change.

It has become a debate designed to de-energize people. To exclude mainstream Australians.

Unless you believe that climate change is a lie or we are in need of an extinction rebellion your views are not welcome.

The truth on climate action today is this:

Australia’s mining and farming sectors are doing more on climate change than the federal government.

Every state in Australia has agreed to net zero emissions by 2050.

Adding a federal Labor Government to that list would be a breakthrough for our climate.

Leading to true national cooperation.

The first building block being our commitment to Rewiring the Nation

Modernising Australia’s energy distribution. 

Linking renewables into our national energy grid.

And creating jobs in every corner of Australia.

Some would like us to do more. To go faster.

But as a progressive I will always believe doing something is preferable to inaction.

This was the fatal policy mistake the Greens Political Party made in 2009.

Policy inertia has been the mark of the past decade.

We need to build momentum for the decade ahead.

How to reach exhausted Australians.

For me there are three things that we need to do to reach these Australians.

A clear, credible and positive agenda.

And that is exactly what Anthony Albanese and Labor outlined in our Budget Reply.

We must be clear.

We need our least politically engaged Australians to be able to understand our values and our policies.

Economic growth and job creation is at the core of our values and our policy agenda.

When Labor says we will have a National Rail Manufacturing Plan Australians know exactly what we are saying.

Build trains here.

We must be credible.

Can you do it in the time you say you will do it?

Australians can spot a fake. Sometimes they see that in Scott Morrison.

As an alternative - look at Labor’s commitment to a $500 million fast track social housing repair.

It is credible, we will do it, and it is closely aligned to our values.

We must be positive.

Policies that are inclusive and exciting.

Scott Morrison can do the exciting photo op - but he can’t do the inclusivity of being a truly positive leader.

He doesn’t value the contribution of others.

Good policy should excite.

And even if it isn’t something that doesn’t excite everyone it should excite the people who understand the problem it is seeking to fix. 

For me – I am excited about the agenda that Labor has begun to outline.

Excited for what it means for our future

And I start to feel the exhaustion dissipating.

Close

My request of you is that you find the energy to campaign for a fairer Australia.

Good ideas and policy give me energy.

I know that is true of the Australian Fabians too.

Thank you.