JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
  

GENERATIONAL DEBT WITHOUT A GENERATIONAL DIVIDEND

The 2021 Intergenerational Report details the very long shadow cast by the Coalition’s eight long years of economic mismanagement – an economy that is smaller than expected, growing slower than expected, and leaves Australians saddled with 40 years of debt and deficits, and wages growth that has never been slower.

The deficit of vision and delivery from Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg leaves Australians generational debt without a generational legacy.

Despite racking up more than $1 trillion in debt and delivering eight years of deficits with at least another forty to come –

• The economy was $158 billion smaller in March this year than projected at the last IGR.
• Growth in living standards and incomes is slowing down – Gross National Income is projected to grow by just 1.3 per cent over the next 40 years, compared to 1.8 per cent over the past 40 years. And this projection is reliant on the Government delivering the productivity growth they’ve failed to foster over the past 8 long years.
• Productivity has stagnated – growing just 0.5 per cent on average in the five years following the last IGR, rather than magically bouncing back to the historical average growth rate of 1.5 per cent assumed in both reports. The Coalition has no policy platform to deliver this growth.
• Australians will be poorer if the Coalition again fails to meet their productivity targets – if productivity was to grow even 0.3 per cent slower than the optimistic assumption, the economy will be almost 10 per cent smaller by 2060, and Australians will be $32,000 worse off on average.

Try as he might, Josh Frydenberg can’t blame COVID-19 for all of this Government’s failings.

The rot with this Government had set in long before the pandemic, when the economy was already $91 billion smaller than forecast at the last Intergenerational Report – an underperformance that equates to an average loss of $8,036 for every Australian.

The Morrison Government’s vision only ever extends as far as the next election.

This report mustn’t be used as political cover for more deep and damaging cuts to the NDIS and Medicare.

If Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg can’t build quarantine or roll out vaccines now, they can’t build prosperity and roll out opportunity into the future.

They’ve failed to deliver the meaningful blueprint required to drive a resurgence in growth, job security, wages and broad-based prosperity.

His Intergenerational Report lacks any modelling of the impact and opportunities stemming from climate change over the next 40 years, despite every State and Territory, the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Industry Group, the National Farmers Federation and some of Australia’s biggest employers embracing net-zero by 2050.

When a growing number of Australians want a Government that is fighting against the key intergenerational threat to our economy, the Liberals and Nationals are too busy fighting each other.

They’ve failed to grasp the urgency of this once in a generation moment to deliver the leadership, big thinking and ambition needed to build a stronger, fairer and more resilient economy through the recovery and into the decades beyond.

They haven’t offered Australians a comprehensive vision for economic reform and economic growth, which means living standards and incomes won’t perform any better over the next 40 years than they have in the last eight. 

They’re squandering yet another big opportunity to create a new generation of growth and more opportunities, for more Australians, in more parts of the country.

Instead of looking forward, this is a Government paralysed by the past.

Only Labor is fighting for a recovery, an economy, and a society where all Australians can share in the benefits.

MONDAY, 28 JUNE 2021