Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

I'm delighted to second the motion. You see, this is a prime minister who didn't know the interest rate but thought he could promise you cheaper mortgages. This is a prime minister who said the number 275 ninety-seven times before the election, but hasn't said it since. This is a prime minister who's not very good with numbers even though he likes to quote his economics degree and all the genuine intel he has about how the economy works. He couldn't name the interest rate but he promised you cheaper mortgages.

We're here in the Liberal and National Parties fighting for the people across Australia who are waiting for their mortgages to get cheaper, who are for their power price to go down and who are struggling to pay their power bills. We're here for the small manufacturers. We're here for the farmers. We're here for the small businesses that you come into this place and laugh at every single question time. We know that they're hurting and we know that they expected better from you, Prime Minister. They expected better from your front bench, who sits here and jeers and sneers and laughs and puts down the ordinary Australians who are counting on you, who listen to the promises you made. You can't say one thing six months ago, come into parliament and roll out an agenda that is full of excuses, because people want solutions. They don't want excuses. The people who are contacting us every day want answers to their problems. They don't want an industry minister who can't talk to the resources minister. They don't want a treasurer who wrings his hands and says, 'It's all awful because of what happened in Russia.' They don't want a prime minister who comes to this dispatch box and laughs, sneers and jeers at the genuine problems they're facing.

Let me just remind people who might be listening that Australians were promised a plan for cheaper mortgages. They were promised a plan for cheaper electricity. They were promised a plan for wages, and even the government's own budget papers demonstrate that real wages will not go up in this term. Where do this government's priorities lie? Only in ramming through their radical and extreme industrial relations agenda and the hurt that will cause small business. The Minister for Small Business could not name a single small business, and neither, with respect, Prime Minister, could you name a single small business that supports this radical industrial relations agenda. You and your team, Prime Minister, have prioritised the unions—

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