Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

As students right across Fisher embark on a new school year, I want to wish them and their families all the very best for the coming year. It's been a challenging year for them. It's been a challenging few years for us all. It's my hope that in 2023 students will look ahead and aspire to greater things.

I want to pay tribute to the teachers and support staff who do such outstanding work creating vibrant learning spaces for our kids. My wife, Leoni, was a teacher, so I've seen the price that teachers pay to prepare our kids to reach their potential. On behalf of a grateful community, I want to thank teachers across the country, but particularly in Fisher, for the great work that they do and for their dedication.

I think 2023 needs to be a year that we focus on young people, and that's what I want to do in Fisher. I'm the father of four incredibly strong and strong-willed daughters. Each of them has a unique journey, a unique skill set and a unique destiny ahead of them, and I'm exceptionally proud of them. They're at the forefront of my mind when I stand, when I speak and as I serve in this House. Young people like them should be at the core of our decision-making in this place. After all, we're doing more than just leaving individual, personal legacies here. With each bill that becomes law we're building the future for a generation of young Australians, and we should never forget that in this place. With each decision we make we are either helping or hindering young Australians in their pursuit of the great Australian dream. Once upon a time the great Australian dream was confined to the concept of owning your own home, but it's much broader than that now. Yes, the dream is to own one's home, but it's also to raise a family in safe and vibrant communities, to provide the best education for your kids to study, to work, to start and grow their own businesses.

The coalition delivered a plan to help young people, young Australians, to realise the great Australian dream. In government, the coalition took this view, and we delivered a plan to make the Australian dream a reality. We delivered HomeBuilder so that young Australians like Erin in Nirimba could build her own home. We introduced the First Home Super Saver Scheme, the regional home guarantee and the family home guarantee to ensure that young people, regional families and single parents have the same opportunities to own their homes as anyone else does. We introduced JobTrainer and the Job-ready Graduates package to make further education and training more affordable and to skill up our young people for a dynamic digital economy.

Labor's attempts to rewrite history remind me a bit of that scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian where Reg and the gang are complaining about the Romans and Reg says, 'Alright, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?' Apart from the record funding on education, mental health, primary health and prevention, red tape reduction, defence industry, science and innovation, what did the coalition ever do for this country? We delivered a plan to back young Australians, their families and their businesses, to keep them safe, to improve their health and wellbeing and to facilitate their potential.

The coalition believes in stoking Australians' pioneer spirit and supporting those who have a go. Once upon a time, that was a bipartisan ambition. It's true that Labor cannot manage the economy and cannot even keep a promise. Eight months in and we see that things are very, very different. Inflation is at its highest point in 33 years, the highest in a third of a century. From Hawke and Keating to Rudd and Albanese, the old stereotype rings ever true: Labor cannot manage the economy. But it goes deeper than that. Labor now cannot keep a promise. They promised to address the cost of living, yet they have dismally failed. Every day I hear story after story about young Australians who are anxious about their future, such as 24-year-old single mum Georgia from Mooloolaba, who is worried about whether she can afford to continue her full-time carer responsibilities with the cost of fuel and food continually going up. Thirty-year-old entrepreneur Jade from Nirimba, who launched her business last year, is already deciding whether or not she can afford to continue. And 18-year-old UniSC student Sarah couch surfs two nights a week because she cannot afford to drive to and from her classes every day.

These are young Australians with aspirations to break generational inequities, to make a difference and to build a brighter future. Many of them lent Labor their vote at the last election—and Labor is squandering their goodwill. They voted for Labor—who led a fierce marketing campaign about opportunity and equality—and what we have is the worst cost-of-living crisis in three decades. What we have is a greater divide between regional Australia and urban elites than ever before.

Labor promise the world—and then they give you an atlas or, in this case, pretend they never made the promise at all. They promised to cut power bills. Ninety-seven times, they promised to cut them by $275. We have repeated this fact ad nauseam and will continue to do so. Labor don't even acknowledge it. Meanwhile, they are presiding over the most expensive average wholesale electricity price on record. By the government's own admission, electricity prices are set to rise by more than 63 per cent, and gas prices by 40 per cent, over the next two years.

I think about this impact and the impact it will have on my local IGA, my butcher and my local fish-and-chip shop. They'll be forced to reduce service, increase prices, lay off staff or, in the worst case, close up shop. We're seeing it across the country already. I think about how this will affect my daughters and young people like them across the country.

There are students who won't be able to put fuel in the car, who will reconsider visiting a GP or can no longer afford to go to the gym. There are young families who will not be able to afford to pay for their kids' swimming lessons or soccer boots. There are young homeowners who will struggle to eat and pay their bills in the same week, young homeowners who have no-one to bail them out of financial hardship, who will be forced into selling or perhaps bankruptcy. There are young entrepreneurs who might throw their hands in the air and be forced back into another job, giving up on their ambition to realise that great Australian dream of running your own business.

This opposition—we on this bench—will keep the torch to the government's feet on power bills, because that is what Australians expect us to do. We on this side of the House will keep the government to its promises, to its election commitments, because that is what Australians expect us to do and it's what Australians expect this government to do—that is, to live up to their promises.

Labor promised to bring down fuel costs. Instead, they removed the excise freeze and have increased red tape for the small businesses and franchises that make up a large number of servos across my electorate. At the same time, the government are funding climate warrior training programs and thrusting brand new emissions taxes on primary producers and mining companies, increasing the cost of supply even more.

How does that help everyday Australians? Ask the mum or dad who has to drive their kids to soccer on a Saturday morning whether their fuel prices are down under Labor. Ask the young hospitality worker who, after a long shift at work, is forced to pay more for their Uber, thanks to Labor's inaction on fuel prices. Ask the truckie who's lost his job because the company's hit hard times and the farmer who can't get his produce off the property because there aren't enough drivers. How are these things fair to Australians?

The Labor government promised to cut the cost of health care—after nearly a decade of record investment, reform and growth in health care, thanks to the coalition. Labor inherited a health system that was the envy of the world. Now Australians are paying for their false promises and intervention. The government have cut 70 telehealth services, further increasing the healthcare gap between regional Australia and the inner city. They promised urgent care clinics across the country. Not a shovel has hit the ground. They promised 50 of these urgent care clinics—and just a couple of weeks ago the Prime Minister stood up and made this big announcement about expressions of interest for three out of the 50. They promised that 50 would be up and running within their first 12 months of government. What we will see is none in the first 12 months.

Meanwhile, ambulance ramping in my state of Queensland is at an all-time high. Police have stepped up and stepped in to fill the ambulance gap, bringing people to hospital, only to be ramped as well. We've got not only a ramping of ambulances in Queensland hospitals but also a ramping of police officers. At a time where in Queensland there is such an incredible law-and-order crisis, the Queensland state government is, in effect, benching Queensland police officers to do the work that ambulances should be doing. That's what a Labor government looks like, whether it be at state or at a federal level. Despite the federal coalition's record investment into Queensland hospitals, the Palaszczuk Labor government and the Albanese Labor government are squandering the goodwill of Queenslanders in exchange for red carpets and tennis matches. It is costing young Aussies their start-ups, their jobs, their houses and, sadly, in the worst-case scenario, their lives. Food, fuel, GP charges, power bills, mortgage repayments, business costs—while young Australians, their families and their businesses struggle to make ends meet, this Labor government are busy playing politics at the whim and the wallet of their union paymasters.

I wish I wasn't standing here saying all of this. When we were in government, I used to sit here as a member of the government and listen to those opposite whine and whinge and complain incessantly, but things are only getting worse under this government. The Reserve Bank estimates that 800,000 Australian mortgages will be moving off fixed mortgage rates this year. Before tomorrow's RBA decision is made—and the RBA will make its own decision—the annual repayments on a $758,000 mortgage will have climbed by almost $16,000. That's $16,000 extra a year that mum-and-dad Australians are having to find to pay for that mortgage. That's $307.70 a week. All of these things are adding to this cost-of-living crisis for single mums and dads, young families and young aspirational Aussies who have bought their own home and want to be a part of that great Australian dream. These are real people—real young people, real families, real veterans and real retirees. This coalition, when in government, delivered real outcomes for them, and they are all worse off under this Albanese Labor government.

They promised to tackle mental health and wellbeing. Their failure to address the cost of living and their failure to deliver a plan for young Australians extends to Australians' mental health too. While young Australians continue to grapple with the mental health consequences of the global pandemic, natural disasters and growing financial pressures, Labor has slashed Medicare funding for psychologist visits. This was a measure we introduced in government along with our landmark $3 billion National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Plan. When we were in government, we funded a national PTSD centre in my electorate in Bokarina. We funded a headspace in Caloundra. We have provided lifesaving funding for people who live with eating disorders. We were able to deliver on a plan to boost mental health services and outcomes for young people and our most vulnerable throughout this country. Yet, instead of a plan, instead of their promised wellbeing budget, Labor offers cuts, cuts and more cuts. If the LNP cut Medicare funding for psychologist visits, like this Labor government did, the people who reside up in that gallery would be up in arms. They would be screaming on every media outlet about how heartless the coalition is. And what do we hear? Crickets.

Labor's betrayal of young people and the most vulnerable in our community goes largely unreported. Labor turned their backs on first responders until we embarrassed them into reversing their funding cuts to Fortem Australia. They turned their backs on veterans on the Sunshine Coast when we didn't get a veteran wellbeing centre, requiring veterans to drive for hours for specialist care. Two veterans are with me in the chamber right now. When it comes to the mental health of young people and everyday Australians, this Labor government is simply out of touch. The health minister in question time this afternoon talked about the report on the Better Access initiative, trying to justify the Labor government's decision to halve psychologist visits. What he didn't talk about was recommendation 12 in that report, which recommended that the 20 visits remain. Funny that—he just kind of left that little bit of detail out.

While regional Australia struggles with a health and mental health crisis, Labor are cutting, slashing and trashing healthcare mobility. While this country contends with a cost-of-living crisis, this Labor federal government are turning a blind eye. They'd rather redesign the $5 note than put money back into taxpayers' pockets. While families struggle to pay their power bill or put food on the table, Labor are throwing taxpayers' money at consultants, climate warriors and communication exercises. Instead of making it easier for businesses to start, employ and grow, Labor are wreaking havoc on our IR laws to appease their union paymasters. This will cost our young Australians their jobs and rob them of hope for a better future.

Labor promised the world to young, aspirational Australians, and they have given them an atlas. Homeownership, health care and manageable household budgets should not be luxuries to young Australians, yet after nine years of good government the Australian dream is slipping from their grasp. This Labor government have no plan for young Australians. They don't have a plan to back small and family business. They don't have a plan to tackle the cost of living. They don't have a plan to protect and propel Australia forward. Eight months in, and we have a government frantic, fumbling and failing to listen to those who elected them to this place.

I say to the young people of Fisher and to young Australians the country over: the coalition are listening to your voices. We are your voice in opposition, and we strive to be your champions in this place. I encourage you to speak up, reach out and make your voices heard. We are building your future in this place, and it is essential that we play our part to work with you, together, in building a better future for you.

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