Keith Wolahan (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I can see no reference to housing. In the chapter 'Throwing grenades' there is a section 'Us and them'. Again this is the brawler in the Labor Party—the fighting tories cliche you hear in the corridors of this place. 'I love fighting tories. I love fighting Liberals'—that's the brawler in the Labor Party. The Treasurer focused a whole chapter on throwing grenades. 'Throwing grenades'—what a great chapter title.

I thought that now we're up to chapter 7 we might actually get something of substance. It's called 'Painting the big picture'. There's 'The high grade drip', 'The rhetorical Prime Minister' and 'Striding the international stage'. Chapter 8 is 'Pressing the flesh', and then you're finished.

That's a whole insight into what the Treasurer is actually focused on. It's a focus on power—how power is obtained, how power is used and how it takes an individual from sitting as Treasurer to sitting as Prime Minister and leader in that seat. That is what the Treasurer is focused on. In all of the speeches about the people this bill will supposedly back there's a bit of statesman, but it's about being a brawler. If you were truly coming in here with your statesman hat on, you would recognise that these off-budget bills are hurting Australians. They are stopping Australians from actually getting into the housing market. This $10 billion bill will do nothing to get young Australian families into their own home.

I'd like to take it back to my seat. In my seat, mortgage repayments are 30 per cent of household income. Compare that to the nationwide average of 14.5 per cent. So in my seat there is enormous mortgage stress and enormous concern about what this government is doing to lever fiscal policy to reduce inflation and to reduce the pressure on them.

This bill sounds great and has great objectives, but it won't achieve those objectives, except one—that is, it will help the Treasurer's focus on his own objectives for power. It will hurt Australians by putting pressure on inflation and, therefore, interest rates. It's pushing more work from this place, from the ministerial wing, down to the Reserve Bank. Then they say, 'Oh, well, it's an independent Reserve Bank.' The Reserve Bank is independent, but it's getting more and more in its in-tray because of the work that's not being done by this frontbench. We oppose this bill because it does nothing to help struggling families throughout this nation.

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