ADDRESS TO MCKELL INSTITUTE
FRIDAY, 28 MARCH 2025
SYDNEY
What if Scott Morrison had won in 2022?
Imagine if three years ago Scott Morrison had won the 2022 election.
Embarrassingly, my home state of Western Australia let the Labor team down late on election night.
We didn’t come through with the seats to help Labor form a majority.
As a consequence, Australians never found out about the secret ministries.
Our relationships across the Pacific strained further.
The trade impediments with China remained.
The painful lessons of Robodebt were never learned.
The 42,000 claim backlogs at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs still sits there to this day.
Young Australians have drained their superannuation and pushed house prices even higher.
Wages have remained stagnant.
The climate wars have continued.
"Neglect" defines the Liberal aged care sector.
And the Liberal Party have reverted to type.
With Peter Dutton eventually sharpening the knives and becoming Prime Minister in 2024.
I am incredibly grateful this did not happen.
Just as I am absolutely determined to stop Peter Dutton becoming Prime Minister in May this year.
He is simply not up to the job.
His GFC share trading disqualifies him.
His career of inappropriate comments everywhere from the Lowy Institute to meetings with Pacific leaders.
And a level of anger and aggression that turns off millions of Australians.
And the decision he made the minute the Budget was released to oppose tax cuts.
Before he had even read the Budget.
I know that for many across Australia, $536 a year is a lot of money.
People who rely on Labor governments
Let me tell you about one such person.
Last week I met someone who had their life story changed by our government.
Thea had been contemplating the choice of sleeping on her friend’s couch, or ending her studies in Perth to return to Karratha with her family.
Thankfully she didn’t have to make that choice.
She was telling me her story as I sat in her apartment in Perth.
Funded by the Housing Australia Future Fund.
Giving her a safe place to call home.
And allowing her to continue her studies in education support for students with disability which is funded by our Free TAFE program.
Because if Thea succeeds, Australia wins.
Optimism in uncertain times
And we need the young people of Australia to have hope.
A generation who had their education upended by a pandemic.
Who saw their parents stare down the Global Financial Crisis.
And now see a volatile, unpredictable global economy.
We have TikTok feeds filling with talk about tariffs.
Trade war threats.
Rising trade disruption.
China’s slowing economy.
War in Europe.
A ceasefire breaking down.
And as Treasurer Jim Chalmers said:
"[Treasury is] already forecasting the 2 biggest economies in the world will slow next year – with risks weighing more heavily on both.
Australia is neither uniquely impacted nor immune from these pressures, but we are among the best placed to navigate them."
It will not be the first time that Australia has prospered in uncertain times.
Taking advantage of our unique place in the world.
Just as we did in the recovery from World War II.
William McKell and his Western Australian friend
Now as a Western Australian, I know the state rivalries can run hot.
Yet the truth is always that we get more done when we work together.
It was NSW Premier William McKell winning office in May 1941 who opened the door for Western Australia to give this nation our greatest Prime Minister.
McKell had campaigned hard on the need for more to be done for Australia’s war manufacturing and production.
The people of New South Wales resoundingly said they trusted Labor to speed up the War effort.
This paved the way for Curtin to gain the numbers on the floor of the House of Representatives just five months later.
In my office sits a copy of the telegram that Curtin sent on that fateful day to his wife Elsie.
From Parliament House to Jarrad Street in Cottesloe, Western Australia the 3 October 1941 telegram read:
“this is your birthday gift… the government will be defeated. Love John”
It was a gift not just to his wife, but to the nation at large.
The friendship between Curtin and McKell was key to Australia’s survival in World War II.
It was no wonder that after the War, Ben Chifley appointed McKell as Australia’s Governor-General.
The first budget that arrived on Governor-General William McKell’s desk was in 1947.
And in it Chifley’s closing argument was this:
“full employment holds the key to many of the greatest economic problems of our community.
Without full employment the financial burdens left by the war could not have been reduced so far; nor could we stand so well the present costs of defence and social services.
Because of full employment, again a notable expansion of industry has been made possible and we are able to adopt such progressive measures as the forty-hour week.”
That holds as true today as in 1947.
That is why the opening words of your report released last week ring so true:
“The Albanese Labor Government has overseen one of the lowest average unemployment rates of any government in Australian history”
Let me say that again:
“The Albanese Labor Government has overseen one of the lowest average unemployment rates of any government in Australian history”
The McKell Institute report went further:
“women, young Australians, those with less formal education, and Indigenous Australians all additionally seeing record low unemployment rates.”
The numbers are there for everyone to see:
Lower unemployment than Fraser, Howard, Abbott, Turnbull or Morrison.
And our Budget released on Tuesday writes new chapters in Labor’s jobs story.
Ten insights you may have missed in the Budget
In this room, I am with people who love diving deep on policy.
You would have all watched the Budget speech.
Done some serious “Control+F” searching through the Budget papers.
Read the analysis in your favourite media outlets.
So I wanted to share with you, my policy obsessed friends, ten insights from the Budget that you may have missed:
Insight one, “$5 billion” that’s the figure in the Treasurer’s speech of how much GDP could improve by our plan to remove non-compete clauses.
Insight two, 25 per cent. That’s how much of the Commonwealth Budget goes directly to the states.
It is $196.5 billion that goes to health, schools, infrastructure, housing, skills, GST and more.
Insight three, “six months earlier” that’s when inflation is forecast to sustainably return to the RBA target band.
Insight four, $111.6 billion, that’s how much less interest Australians will pay on government debt compared to the Pre-Election Fiscal Outlook.
Insight five, the Australian Public Service that is on the Liberal chopping block is at a size below historical levels.
Today, federal public servants make up 1.5 per cent of the labour force and 0.8 per cent of the total population. In 2006–07, federal public servants comprised 1.6 per cent of the labour force and 0.8 per cent of the population.
Insight six, the Budget reveals just how turbocharged outsourcing had become under the last Coalition government.
Some 53,900 staff across 112 agencies were outsourced.
Insight seven, $217.40 a week – that’s how much women’s full-time average ordinary time earnings have increased under this government.
Insight eight, not a billion, but $999 million for the Australian Tax Office to strengthen the fairness and sustainability of our tax system by expanding compliance activities.
Insight nine, funding is in this budget for the National Autism Strategy.
$42.2 million to deliver on our Government’s vision for a safe and inclusive society for all Autistic people.
Finally, Insight ten, September 2025. That is when our new “Front Door” begins.
The Front Door will make it simpler to invest in Australia and attract more global and domestic capital.
The reason I go through that is simple.
To show that wherever you look in this Budget there is a plan to Build Australia’s Future.
Deep, considered policy work.
Driven by the values of fairness, opportunity and indeed, democracy.
Australia Decides in 2025
And it is that value of democracy which will bring Australians together at school halls across Australia in the weeks ahead.
And this is a pivotal election, in the middle of a pivotal decade.
This election really does come down to some simple choices.
Labor will cut your taxes.
The Liberals will go back to cutting your wages.
Labor will cut student debt
The Liberals will go back to the policies that doubled student debt on their watch.
A choice about backing manufacturing, or leaving us at the whim of global supply chains.
A choice about continuing to act on climate change, or spending Australia’s inheritance on $600 billion of nuclear reactors.
A choice about setting Medicare up for the next 40 years, or going back to the Australia where medical bills were the leading cause of bankruptcy
The Best Indicator is Past Performance
I began thinking about what would happen if Scott Morrison had won in 2022.
Thankfully he did not.
Most now conclude this was good for our country.
The Australian people never get it wrong.
I will finish with what happens if Peter Dutton wins.
Not in my words, but in the words of the Leader of the Opposition himself.
On 20 March he said:
“the best indicator is past performance”.
Before he was Leader of the Opposition his biggest policy adventure was his 2014 move to end Medicare Bulk Billing.
The $50 billion cut from public hospitals.
In just the last three years he has:
Opposed cheaper childcare, cheaper medicines and opposed 87 Medicare Urgent Care Clinics.
Tuesday this week he opposed tax cuts for 14 million Australians.
Wednesday he voted against them.
Thursday morning he said he would roll the tax cuts back.
And then last night in his Budget reply he left Australians with too many questions.
Why does he want to increase taxes on every Australian taxpayer?
Why does he want to cut 41,000 public servants?
Why does he want to walk away from our critical minerals industry?
Why reject private investment in renewables and spend $600 billion of taxpayer dollars on nuclear reactors?
Why evict residents in Housing Australia Future Fund homes?
How will he pay for his nuclear reactors?
Will he leave Australians with an Americanised health system?
Which public servants get a redundancy on day one?
And where are his plans for housing, manufacturing, TAFE, universities and schools?
Our Plan to Build Australia’s Future
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has a plan to Build Australia’s Future.
It is in our Budget. It is in Labor’s blood.
You have seen us in the careful, considered way we develop policy.
Managing Australia’s international relationships in our national interest.
And always looking to hand down a fairer deal to the next generation.
Thank you.