Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Let me give you a quote: 'My word is my bond.' Who did say that, and, on 99 other occasions, give a similar promise in the same vein? It was the man that the Australian public voted for, only 18 months ago, who they have now decided is a very different person, of a very different character than he was when they voted for him in May 2022.

The reality is that this Prime Minister is barely recognisable, because he has completely and utterly trashed his reputation. His word counts for nothing. There is nothing that this Prime Minister can say, no commitment that he can give, no undertaking that he can provide, no promise or assurance that he can give that the Australian public could actually reliably bank. This is a prime minister devoid of any moral character.

You can't look the Australian public in the eye on 97 occasions and tell them that their power bill is going down by $275. The basis on which many Australians voted for him was that they thought their power bills were coming down. Do you know, he has not mentioned that once—not once—since being elected. Not once has he ever mentioned that figure again—97 times before the election, but not once since. What are Australians supposed to believe—that this Prime Minister is going to keep his promise; that somehow, magically, their power bills will go down by $275? It was not just on a single occasion, but each year, he promised.

So, by the end of the three-year term, the Prime Minister has a lot to deliver. He's not going to, of course. He never had any intention of delivering that promise. He never thought for a moment before the election that he would be held to account for that key promise.

We saw the Prime Minister in question time today, completely avoiding a straight answer to every question. He carries on with the theatrics. He was asked specifically about the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, and comments he'd made about the new car and ute tax that the Labor Party is bringing in. Over the weekend, the minister was out there saying that this will be great for emissions reductions. He cited the case of the Mazda CX-30. He said that the emissions reduction in the model of the CX-30 in the UK was dramatically less than the models sold here in Australia. As it turns out, what he said on that day was not accurate, but that comes as no surprise to anyone in this place. What he failed to mention and what the Prime Minister refused to respond to today is that, in the UK, under the fuel emission standards proposed to be brought in by this government, the CX-30 is $19,000 dearer than it is here in Australia. The Prime Minister didn't mention the figure of $19,000. He didn't mention the prospect of a price increase. How on earth can Australians afford the Labor Party? How can Australians who are under the pump at the moment with increased energy prices, with increased food prices, with increased prices for every element within their family budget afford a $19,000 increase in the price of an average family car? The answer is that they cannot.

This Prime Minister is so out of because most of his time is spent with the elite in this country. We know of his relationship with Alan Joyce. He never mentions Alan Joyce these days. He used to be happy to walk the red carpet on regular occasions, have Alan Joyce over for cocktails at the Lodge and have him over for whiskey at Kirribilli. Has he mentioned him recently? No, he hasn't. But these are the people who he hangs out with. He's not talking to average families in the suburbs whose mortgage has gone up by $24,000 after tax. That's $48,000 if you're on the top marginal tax rate or $40,000 or $45,000 depending on what tax rate you're on. How on earth can the average Australian family, when they're paying over $2 a litre for petrol or diesel in this country under this government, their insurance premiums have doubled and gas is up by 30 per cent, afford the continuing bills that are mounting up under this government, let alone try to find $600, $700 or $800 out of their pay packets each week to just service their mortgage? No wonder you're seeing price rises in your grocery basket as you are taking it to the checkout.

I have an enormous amount of sympathy with Australians, particularly those on lower incomes, those on fixed incomes, such as self-funded retirees, and people on bigger incomes who have higher needs because they've got a special-needs child at home, and one of the partners in that relationship has decided to stay at home. Perhaps there's a particular skill that one of the partners in that relationship or marriage has, and they've decided that they want to work, because the other partner is staying at home to take care of the children. That's a perfectly legitimate decision for that family to make. I have enormous respect for the decisions that those people have made in their own lives for the right reasons, but I desperately worry that under this government the prices that families are facing and the difficulties that Labor has created over the last two years will continue, and the damage to those families will indeed be long lasting.

We haven't seen wholesale sales of assets, particularly the family home, in our country for a long period of time—not since the Labor Party was in during the Hawke-Keating period. At the moment, the banks aren't moving on families, even if they're behind in their payments, because the banks know that they don't want a run on that asset class. They know that people are sitting on considerable equity within their own homes so that, as interest continues to compound, the bank's exposure, if there is a fire sale of that asset, is not as dramatic as it would have been in this country some time ago. There is still, of course, significant underlying demand for homes in our country because the CFMEU and others, including this government, have decimated the building industry. We know, though, that those families are feeling the stress. They are feeling the stress.

When we were in government, we legislated for stage 1, stage 2 and stage 3 tax cuts. Stage 1 and stage 2 were targeted at people on low and middle incomes. It was $200 billion worth of tax cuts for those people. It was voted for by the Prime Minister. It was promised on a hundred occasions. The Prime Minister went to two elections assuring the Australian public that there was no difference between the position of the coalition and the position of the party that he led. There have been $200 billion of tax cuts already provided. We know that that has been delivered, and stage 3 was scheduled to be delivered. We know that the LMITO tax offset arrangements that we put in place provided considerable assistance to people on low and middle incomes. But we know that when the Labor Party came into power they abolished that offset, which means that today Australians, only 18 months after they voted for this Prime Minister, are paying 27 per cent more personal income tax than when the Prime Minister was first elected.

If you contrast those facts to the rhetoric and bluster and nonsense that we heard today, you know that this is a prime minister who can't lie straight in bed. You know that this Prime Minister, when he's lying awake at the Lodge at night, he must be lying there in bed—

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