Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Before the election, this Prime Minister promised that Australians would be better off under his government. He didn't promise it once; he promised it many times over. In fact, his $275 promise on electricity prices was made 96 times. He promised cheaper mortgages. He promised a broader lower cost of living. He promised 1.2 million more houses over five years. But none of these things have come to fruition; not one of these things has come to fruition. Australians are experiencing a collapse in their standard of living, a collapse the likes of which we haven't seen in our lifetimes, and right at the heart of it is a huge increase in taxes being paid. We're paying a 20 per cent increase in personal tax, a 12 per cent increase in interest rates, a 10 per cent increase in prices on average of many, many items that are absolutely essential to the household budget and a 27 per cent increase to gas prices, which is substantially more, just to take an example.

Australians are experiencing a family recession. The latest economic update that came out in the last week or so confirms that Labor has been missing in action on managing the economy. The Prime Minister and his team have spent the last year wasting time on their $450 million frolic for the Voice referendum.

Many Australians scraped through the pandemic only to find life harder than ever with less to show for it. There is a better way, and I'll come back to that in a moment, but it is worth dwelling for a moment on what happens to our economy. We are facing a GDP per person recession. At the end of the day the only thing that matters to someone in the economy is what they're feeling, what the family is feeling, what the household is feeling, what the small businesses of Australia are feeling. As I said, after two years of Labor, they haven't seen it so bad, with higher taxes, higher prices and higher mortgage rates. The economy is grinding to a halt, and the sad reality is that we have got to a point where the only thing left growing in this economy is the population.

In the last 12 months we've seen the population grow by 2.6 per cent. Meanwhile, we're seeing the economy growing at only 0.2 per cent per quarter. The sad reality is this is a government that thinks it's okay to have an economy that is only powered by immigration growth—over 500,000 in one year with population growth over 600,000. Today, we read that the housing requirement for that extra 500,000 is about 75 per cent down on where it needs to be. Only in one in four of the houses required for Australians relative to that population growth is being built. If you dig a little deeper, you see that the combined impact of a 23 per cent increase in personal income taxes being paid, the 10 per cent increase in prices and the 12 interest rate increases has led to a 7½ per cent reduction in disposable income for Australians.

We see it on the ground wherever we go. I make a point—and I've done this with many of my colleagues behind me here—of going to food banks in my colleagues' electorates to hear and see what Australians are feeling. We're seeing people at food banks who have never been there before. We see people relying on Vinnies, a wonderful organisation, for clothing and other supports who have never required that support before. People who are working, people with double incomes and people with mortgages are all looking for this sort of support under this government.

The cause is straightforward. It is a government that is distracted. It is a government that's spending more time on politics than on managing the economy. It is a government that thought spending a year on a referendum that the Australian people unashamedly rejected last year was a good way to spend its time, rather than focusing on the economy. But the response of Australians is the most striking thing of all. Australians are a stoic lot. If they have a bad government that's doing the wrong thing and making the wrong calls, they cope. But they cope in ways that hurt.

First of all, we have almost a million Australians now working a second or third job—almost a million Australians. It's only way they can pay the mortgage or make ends meet. We see Australians, essentially, no longer saving. We saw the savings rate drop to just over one per cent of disposable income. They've essentially given up on saving. If you are a young Australian, the only way you are ever going to own a home is to save the money for a deposit, and they've given up under this government. We know savings rates need to be at seven or eight per cent to be sustainable. They are nowhere near that. We see people cutting back not only on their discretionary spending but also on their non-discretionary spending. When they're cutting back on the food bill, we know things are absolutely desperate. This is supposed to be the lucky country, but Australians aren't feeling lucky under Labor, and it's bad decisions from Labor that are making the difference.

I've already pointed to the mismatch between immigration and housing. Immigration rates are over 500,000. The government itself is forecasting over 1.2 million people immigrating to Australia over the next four years, and every indication is that the number is going to be substantially higher than that. What we also know, as I said, is that only one in four of the houses required is being built. Even on the government's own forecast for housing, they're expecting 20,000 houses a month to be built, and, in fact, they're building about 12,000. I don't know where they think these people are going to go, but I do know that young people I speak to in my electorate and across this country cannot find housing. They cannot find housing because it's simply not there.

Meanwhile, there is a better way. That's why we have said that it's right and proper that Australians should be able to access their superannuation for housing. It is a bizarre situation where the only house Australians can't invest in with their super is their own house, but it's a situation that is okay by this government. We see a government that is spending in a way we haven't seen for many, many years. We've seen over $209 billion of additional spending since this government came to power—that's $20,000 per household—and the $450 million referendum is just the beginning.

The Treasurer is a doctor of spin, not a doctor of economics. He hasn't even bothered turning up here today. In the whole time that he has been Treasurer, he's not bothered to turn up to an economic debate like this one. This Treasurer has instead set up a $40 million spin unit. That's what you do when Australians are doing it tough: you set up a spin unit to tell them they've never had it so good. Australians know far better than that. Meanwhile, he is going down a long list of taxes that he's imposing or, no doubt, planning to impose: unrealised capital gains—we haven't seen a government go there before—franking credits, a tourist tax, recycling and clothing. Every farmer under this government is going to see an additional tax when they sell a head of sheep or cattle. It's going to be there on the invoice. They'll see it. This is a government that is very happy to go after farmers, but it's not only going after farmers but it's also going after tradies and families with their utes. It's a government that's happy to say, 'You should pay $15,000 more for your HiLux'—or $14,500, to be exact—and substantially more for many of the most popular cars in Australia.'

Meanwhile, we see the energy minister crow because energy prices are not going up as much as they were, having promised a $275 reduction. This is a hapless energy minister who will never deliver the promise that he made to Australians. Meanwhile, we see small-business failures increasing rapidly and exits from the industry increasing at a rapid rate—and I have no doubt that under this government we're going to see far more of the same. There is a better way, but it's not the way that this Labor government has taken us.

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