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

That's right, Member for Barker. We have a growing class of working poor. Breadlines are appearing in our cities once again. In the 2020s, like the 1920s, Australia is looking less like the lucky country and more like the hungry country—such a far cry from what the Prime Minister promised: 'No-one left behind, always looking after the disadvantaged and vulnerable; that's what my government will do.' Well, millions and millions of Australians are being left behind. As I said, you visit these food charities, as we all do, and you're told how they see an immediate spike in presentations once mortgages go up. And, unfortunately, mortgages may be going up further, with the Reserve Bank governor confirming that Australia has world-leading inflation, driven not by overseas factors but by domestic factors.

It isn't just mortgages that are biting. Labor is hammering Australians on every front. Food is up eight per cent; housing, up 10 per cent; insurance, up 17 per cent; electricity, up 18 per cent; and gas, up 28 per cent. From rents to retail, inflation is due to Labor's reckless decision to bring in hundreds of thousands of migrants without a plan to house them. The services Australians need cost more today because of rises in electricity and rents. They're all things that Labor has done by driving up inflation.

I didn't mention the preposterous energy minister—that's the only description I have for him in every single question time—and the ridiculous statements he makes, because what he doesn't understand is what we see in the manufacturing businesses of Australia: hurt, pain, doors closing, employees being let go and no prospect of actually making things in Australia, as the Labor government wants us to do. It's really no surprise that prices are surging. From the cost of building your first home to your morning coffee, food in the supermarket and even your Uber trip, Labor are fixated on driving up prices exactly when we need them to do the opposite.

We can't let this MPI go past without talking about national security, because we shouldn't forget it took President Biden and ASIO director Mike Burgess to remind Australians of the threats posed by China—by the Chinese Communist Party—when the Prime Minister failed to do so. He used to talk tough on Chinese ownership of the port of Darwin, but he opted for the status quo. He reassured us his rapprochement with China was just about business, but his officials told the diaspora community that his visit to Beijing was purely political. And disgracefully, after his government stage-managed the release of information to avoid awkward questions about this attack on our Navy divers, he still refuses to confirm whether or not he stood up for our people when he met President Xi Jinping. It cannot be the case that we have a prime minister who speaks up for Aussie pandas when he's in China—happy to be photographed with the pandas—but refuses to speak up for our Navy divers. The government claims to be kicking goals in foreign policy, but all I can see is chaos.

The chaos on our borders has really been writ large in the parliament over the last fortnight because Labor have released over 100 hardened criminals into the community and now we've learnt that they can't account for them. The minister for immigration has promised me a list.

The minister for immigration promised me a list of how many rapists, murderers and paedophiles he has released.

An opposition member: Have you got it yet?

No, I haven't got it, even though he said he would do that on 14 November. He told me he would provide me with a list. Under Labor, we now have new asylum seekers arriving by boat being put into Nauru, with the first child going into detention since Labor was last in government. Weak on borders, weak on defence, weak on foreign policy—Labor are proving an Australian political truism: when given enough rope, they are economic and national security failures. It is chaos.

If you're bewildered about how we got here, remember what the Prime Minister's sole focus was for his first 500 days in office. His first and total focus was the Voice. He doesn't mention it now. He took the Voice referendum from a 61-39 majority to the bottom of the cliff, 61-39 against. He killed constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians for at least a generation.

He is tricky and slippery with the truth. This may seem like a small thing but, my goodness, it's indicative. Just last week, he tried to claim that he hadn't had any time off for a year, but he actually announced to the media in April that he was going on a week's leave. He told an audience, 'I haven't had any time off.' He said, 'I don't talk about private meetings with world leaders,' but then he briefed out what he discussed with President Biden in October. 'I don't talk about the National Security Committee.' He has said that many times. Well, time after time he likes to talk about the National Security Committee. He likes to mislead. Unfortunately, he peddles mistruths when it suits him. The consequences are clear for all of us to see.

Today the excellent, outstanding shadow minister for communications brought a bill into this place about an online safety amendment to protect Australian children from online harm, and this government voted against it. Shame on them. Do we really think that it's okay to ignore the eSafety Commissioner? She is a really good person who spent two years researching the issue of online harm to children and came up with what I think is quite a moderate proposal, which is to do a trial about age verification, to try to restrict access by younger children to violent pornography online. Why would you not support that? I encourage everyone to listen to the words of the shadow minister for communications and others who spoke in that debate, including the crossbench. There was a very powerful intervention from the member for Mayo, and others on the crossbench were saying, 'What on earth is wrong with the government that it wouldn't support this?' That's it, you see, Deputy Speaker. Every single day— (Time expired)

See this speech in context