Last week, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce made a telling admission that exposed a lot about what has gone wrong with the federal government.
Asked about what plan the Morrison-Joyce government had for reducing carbon emissions, Mr Joyce said: “We don’t actually come up with the plan.”
Really? This man is the Deputy Prime Minister. Their job is to plan.
Mr Joyce’s attitude provides context for the many failures and lost opportunities of the Coalition government, which has been in office for almost a decade.
Scott Morrison doesn’t think ahead. He has no agenda. He simply occupies space. And if things go wrong, he refuses to take responsibility.
First, Mr Morrison had no plan for the Black Summer Bushfires, even though former fire chiefs and scientists had explicitly warned him of the danger before the tragedy.
Then Mr Morrison bungled the two main jobs he had this year – rolling out vaccinations and fixing our broken quarantine system.
As a result, millions of Australians are in lockdown as the rest of the developed world begins to get back to normal. Australians are sick. Jobs are being lost. Students can’t go to school.
Then there is economic management.
While the Covid pandemic has hammered our economy, the truth is that before we even had heard of Covid, debt was at record high levels and growth in family incomes had stalled while costs like healthcare bills were still rising. It was already hard for families to get ahead.
Federal Labor understands the importance of planning. Over the past two years, we’ve developed a blueprint for an Australia that will be stronger and more resilient than it was before the pandemic.
Our plan is focused squarely on jobs and economic growth and it begins with modernising our employment system.
As things stand, our labour market has serious deficiencies that don’t come through in each month’s unemployment figures.
About 1.7 million Australians are unemployed or underemployed, meaning they can’t get the hours they need to look after their families.
Meanwhile, four million Australians are in insecure jobs. They don’t know how much they will earn each week, which makes it hard to plan or get a bank loan.
A Labor government will prepare a White Paper on Full Employment to provide a road map for the redesign of our employment system so it better serves the needs of Australians and their families.
I want to work with employers and workers so more people can get work and the hours they need.
In the quickly changing 21st century, we need flexibility and security.
We need an economy that works for Australians, not the other way around.
We must revitalise Australian manufacturing.
The pandemic has exposed the need for us to be more resilient and we have extraordinary opportunities to build back stronger if we are smart.
Our abundance of renewables can drive down power prices, boost productivity and make us more competitive.
A Labor government would help businesses capitalise on this gain with our $15bn National Reconstruction Fund, providing loans and other help to kickstart new manufacturing ventures or modernise existing businesses.
We would target sectors including renewable technology, resources and food production, with a special focus on value adding and regional Australia.
For example, Australia is among the world’s largest exporters of lithium, which is used to make batteries.
Instead of exporting the raw material, we should further develop our own battery industry here, providing thousands of jobs and boosting our national income.
New industries need skilled workers. So a Labor government would create Jobs and Skills Australia, an independent body that would work with employers, unions and TAFEs to ensure we are teaching young Australians the skills needed for these new industries.
Right now there are 115,000 fewer Australians in apprenticeships and traineeships than there were when the Coalition took office.
That’s not good enough.
Labor would further boost training with our Australians Skills Guarantee, requiring that 10 per cent of all jobs on government-funded worksites be apprentices, trainees or cadets.
We would also harness the power of government purchasing to ensure that when we need to purchase defence supplies or new trains for public transport, we make them here, rather than sourcing them overseas.
Australia has the capacity to manufacture more of what we need.
But we need a government prepared to step up to the responsibility of leadership.
In the 21st century, our nation is perfectly placed to prosper. We sit at the heart of the region that is undergoing the fastest economic growth in human history.
We face a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform our economy and build back from this crisis stronger, fairer and more united as a country.
But to seize these opportunities, we must reach out and grab them.
It’s not enough to cross our fingers and hope. We need a solid plan.
Mr Morrison has no plans. And Mr Joyce thinks it isn’t his job.
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