“The Liberal budget is a missed opportunity”
Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg delivered a big spending budget. Half a trillion dollars aimed at navigating Australia out of the COVID-19-induced recession.
The idea that it is really a Labor budget is rejected by the Leader of the Opposition, Anthony Albanese.
“It is a short-term political response and Mr Frydenberg has failed to deliver genuine reform and the significant changes that are needed,” Mr Albanese told Neos Kosmos.
“The Liberals have missed an opportunity to fix weaknesses in the economy, that were revealed during the pandemic, we need greater resilience to fluctuation and added value to manufacturing.”
He said that the Liberal government in its budget, “acknowledges mistakes and problems it has created”.
“They cut $1.7b in aged care and created a crisis and now they are forced to act, they made childcare unaffordable, now they are trying to fix it.”
He recognises that governments are Keynesian again, spending their way out of the pandemic’s economic shutdown.
“Labor governments have always understood that you need to invest during a downturn.
“Josh Frydenberg said ‘I can’t rule out really cuts into the future’, they enact cuts, it’s in the core of their DNA.”
A Labor budget is about “structural changes that make a difference beyond the next election according to Mr Albanese.
I’ve never forgotten where I came from.
I’ve never lost sight of the power of government to help people realise their potential.
That’s why I want to be your Prime Minister – because I want to use the power of government to help you. pic.twitter.com/Q2ylN8ZRJO
— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) May 13, 2021
He adds that the business community are “concerned that budget indicates a below trend growth.” He adds that while we see “good growth this year” it is only because of the “pandemic forced decline.”
“Once we get over the initial rise the economy will go back to low growth, back to real wages in decline.”
Labor leader supports aspiration
At the last Federal Election many migrants and their children rejected the class-war narrative presented by the then ALP leader, Bill Shorten.
“I have always supported aspiration,” Mr Albanese said,
Mr Albanese highlighted the report of the Multicultural Taskforce led by Egyptian Australian, Peter Khalil, the Member for Wills.
“We know that one of the critical issues raised by the report is the need to multicultural businesses to access more support in establishing and supporting new enterprises.”
The National Reconstruction Fund, and the Report from the Multicultural Taskforce aim at supporting “multicultural communities establish small businesses, to get the information and support that they need going forward.”
READ MORE: Labor’s Multicultural Engagement Taskforce report: less “buzzwords”, more essence and grit
“Many small businesses in Australia are run by migrants, and migrants are twice as likely to establish the small business as a non-migrant Australians.”
Mr Albanese makes a virtue of the fact that his electorate is the heartland of Sydney’s Greek community.
“My neighbours are Greek, I am a son of immigrants, and I believe in aspiring to create wealth, not just be concerned about its distribution.”
“I was raised by a single mom on an invalid pension, and grew up in public housing, my mom aspired to a better life for me, and that’s what the rest of the people who have come to Australia want to build a better life for their children and their grandchildren.”
Public housing “is a win-win outcome”
A centrepiece of Labor’s budget reply is the $10-billion fund for 30,000 low-cost houses, including 10,000 affordable dwellings “for frontline workers who cannot afford to live in the suburbs they service.”
“When I was growing up, we had council housing and you had people who worked in the council living in them, but now you’ve got real concentrations of disadvantage, which is not good for the aspirations of children growing up in those circumstances,” he said.
Neos Kosmos asked if Labor would consider the economist, the late Hugh Stretton’s approach of allowing welfare and low-income people the opportunity to own a public house.
“That can be considered down the track,” Mr Albanese said.
He said that when Hugh Stretton was proposing those policies, we had “substantially more public housing”.
“Public housing is now reserved for the very poor, the people who are really doing it tough, who won’t be in a position add to buy property.”
Mr Albanese sees increased public housing supply as having a positive impact on the private market.
“My mother drummed into me that when you get a chance buy your own place that is an essential aspect of migration, immigrants want to own their own homes.”
Without that security of a roof over a head, it’s impossible for you to hold down a job.
It’s impossible for you to look after your health.
It’s impossible for you to turn your life around.
That’s why a Labor Government will act. pic.twitter.com/w2cawhcwM5
— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) May 20, 2021
Mr Albanese acknowledges that the government has put lots of money towards new home ownership and supports measures to assist private ownership.
However, he says that many of these new homes were going to be “built anyway” and that the “investment will be soaked up by existing builds.”
“Under Labor’s scheme” support for social and housing “won’t cost the taxpayers anything,” he added.
“They will be paid for through an investment vehicle that uses profits to invest in public housing and creates assets.
“It is a win-win outcome, you boost jobs and construction you increase housing supply, and you provide a roof over people’s heads.”
“The Australian passport… must mean something”
Mr Albanese is angry at the Federal Government’s failure to repatriate Australians stranded overseas.
“The government had two jobs this year, to get the vaccine rollout right and to fix quarantine and they’ve done neither.
“Scott Morrison said he’d get Australians home by Christmas, he failed, for Greeks and others, it’s a real problem.”
His neighbours, an elderly Greek couple have a daughter stuck on the island of Kos and he becomes emotional when talking of their pain.
“They are in pain, there are issues around pension, there are issues of care and they have not been reunited with their daughter since last March.”
Mr Albanese says is he was the prime minister he’d “ensure the vaccine rollout was finished” and that “proper quarantine facilities are established”
Mr Albanese points to our aviation “sitting idle across Australia, as well as our Air Force.”
“If our Air Force was good enough to fly Mathias Cormann around for job interviews, why isn’t it good enough to bring Australians back home from Greece?
“The Australian passport, and citizenship, must mean something.”
Australia is the only country in the advanced world that has “not brought its citizens home” he adds.
Mr Albanese lays the blame on Mr Morrison’s feet, “He never accepts responsibility for anything.
“The federal government is responsible for quarantine, responsible for immigration and responsible for customs, it has been so for 120 years.”
“When the people who tested positive, but was a false positive, were offloaded from the planes in India Scott Morrison blamed Qantas.
“With this Prime Minister it’s always someone else.”
“Downgrading history is a real problem”
Asked about ACARA’s proposed new curriculum Mr Albanese conceded had not read it having to focus on the budget. The proposed curriculum seems to make Ancient Greece, Rome, Indus, Judea, footnotes rather core pillars of human civilisation.
“Downgrading of ancient history, and history in general, is a problem as is the issue of language, and we need to focus on second and community languages.
“We need to learn about how the world arrived that way we are now and in order to know where we are going, we’ve got to know where we have been.”
What now?
Being in opposition is a tough job especially when an incumbent government spends big.
Missteps by the Morrison government though, such as criminalising Australians seeking to come back from COVID-19 ravaged India – recent deaths of Australians in India – may be a turning point.
Marginal seats in Victoria have significant South Asian populations who voted Liberal in the last election.
Dumping culture war narratives, refocusing on immigrant aspiration, and shifting Labor’s gaze to the suburbs rather than the inner-city middle class, may aid Labor’s own electoral aspirations.
The Liberal government’s budget is squarely aimed at a federal election – we can only wait.