Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Treasurer Joe Hockey in question time on Monday. Credit:Photo: Andrew Meares It's weak and it's bleak. It isn't heading "in the right direction". Looking ahead, the Reserve Bank expects growth to remain "a little below trend for somewhat longer, and the rate of unemployment peak a little higher, than earlier expected." Unemployment has climbed from a quarterly rate of 5.3 per cent at the end of 2012 to 5.8 per cent at the end of 2013 to 6.2 per cent at the end of 2014. We get the first figures for 2015 on Thursday. Unemployment is worse than it was at the peak of the global financial crisis. The Reserve Bank expects it to get worse still. Hockey and Cormann will tell you that while unemployment is growing, employment is too. But it's not, really. The number of hours worked per month grew barely at all throughout 2014. More people may have been employed at the end of the year than the start but on average they've been working less, some shifting to part-time work and others to fewer hours of full-time work. Disturbingly, the Reserve Bank says the number of hours worked per month has scarcely changed since December 2011 despite three years of population growth.

Without trust we lack confidence. We are neither spending nor investing what we should. "When Australians spend the first six months of the year working for the government with tax rates nearly 50c in the dollar it is a disincentive. You're working July, August, September, October, November, December just for the government and then you start working for yourself and your own household income after that for another six months, he said. But Australia's tax-to-GDP ratio is about 30 per cent, including all taxes, state and federal. It simply can't be the case that typical Australians pay nearly half their income in tax. They don't. And exaggerated claims have eaten away at trust. Hockey said Australia was on track to run out of money to pay for its health, welfare and education systems. The figures put forward by his then health minister suggested otherwise. In ten years the cost of Medicare had climbed 124 per cent, the cost of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme 90 per cent and the cost of public hospitals 83 per cent. But Australia's gross domestic product - the money we would use to pay for these things - climbed 94 per cent. The government tells us it's concerned about future generations, but won't release the Treasury's intergenerational report. It tells us it wants a discussion about tax, but won't release the tax discussion paper finalised late last year.

Without trust we lack confidence. We are neither spending nor investing what we should. Business and consumer confidence has been sliding since September. Specific businesses are at a standstill. Universities don't know what fees they will be allowed to charge, students enrolling don't know what fees they will eventually be asked to pay, doctors don't know what will happen to their incomes, electricity generators don't know what will happen to the renewable energy target, big businesses don't know whether they will be hit with the 1.5 per cent paid parental leave levy and what it will be used for. If they applied themselves, Abbott and his ministers could methodically work through each of these issues. But they wouldn't be trusted. The government itself has become an impediment to economic growth. It had the ability to make a fresh start. On Monday it didn't take it. Peter Martin is economics editor of The Age. Twitter: @1petermartin