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

I thank the speakers from both sides who have spoken before me. We've heard a lot of advocacy by metaphor today. The member for Hawke and the member for Parramatta jumped right in. We heard from Dennis Denuto. To the children upstairs, I can say that Dennis Denuto was a lawyer in a movie. He tried to help in a High Court case by passing water. But here's the thing: that was actually more helpful than what this Treasurer or this government is doing. So I'd like to take another metaphor. You all know The Simpsons. There are various characters. This government likes to use The Simpsons. In question time, it likes to refer to it. I want to pick a character that people are familiar with, Ralph Wiggum. You all know the meme; Ralph Wiggum says, 'I'm helping.' That's what we've heard from the member for Parramatta. Why should Australians complain, because, like Ralph Wiggum, you're helping? The government's helping.

We know that there is a delicate balancing act, and the member for Parramatta sought to show some sort of hypocrisy. How can you on the one hand say that the government should spend less and on the other hand say that the economy is weak? It's because there is a delicate task here, which is that we want to take the heat out of the economy but not crash it. There are three actors in that delicate task: there are families, who are doing their bit, and we heard from the member for Casey the brutal reality of how hard that is and the stress that comes with it; there is the RBA, with monetary policy, doing their bit; and then there is fiscal policy through the government.

The member for Solomon and I have both been on various Army exercises, including a commando one where you were told to do a delicate task: 'Here is your heavy pack, here is the distance you have to go, and you must get there within a certain window—not too soon, not too late. If you get there too soon, the mission has failed. If you get there too late, the helicopter has gone.' It doesn't help that delicate task if someone is saying, 'I'm going to jump in your backpack and say that I'm helping.' So Ralph Wiggum jumps in your backpack, and then, as you're trying to get through and balance this delicate logistics task that you have, and you're hurting and your feet are hurting and you've got other people whom you're responsible for, Ralph Wiggum reaches into your backpack, pulls out a chocolate bar and says, 'Here. Look what I've just given you: your chocolate bar'—your tax cuts—'How grateful you should be for what I'm giving you. I'm giving you something you already had. It's yours anyway. You can thank me later.'

Families who are doing it tough need better than Ralph Wiggum. They need better than metaphors from this government. The matter of public importance is:

This Government's incompetence and mismanagement hurting Australian families.

We know the brutal stories of how tough families are doing it. The median wage in Australia is $65,000. The average wage is $95,000. Everyone in this debate—all of us—is earning more than double that, so we must remember that, when families get an email with an extra bill or with a notice that says, 'You're overdue,' they feel that in a very brutal way, and not just in a personal way like cutting back on holidays and school trips and restaurants. Mums and dads who are responsible for their children know that they will have to cut back on things that they never thought they would, or should, have to cut back on. That's the brutal reality of families trying to balance this delicate task of their role in the economy and their role in their own households, and we must never forget that. When they see food go up and up and up and they're making choices about fresh or preserved, when they see energy costs go up and up and up and in winter, where we are now, they're turning the heating off and in summer they're turning the air-conditioning off, and when holidays are getting cut, that is the brutal reality of what families are facing now.

Of course, there are aspects of this that are not solely the government's responsibility or even, indeed, that of our own nation. There are worldwide pressures on inflation. In this difficult time, what you want more than anything is a government that is competent, and that means ministers who are across their brief. A government is made up of ministers in a wide variety of portfolios, and we have seen in the last few weeks incompetence after incompetence. Australians are noticing and we've heard comments. Australians have said, 'It feels like the wheels are falling off.' I always put the interests of Australia before my party and myself. You're still in power for at least another year. Put the wheels back on, get control and show some competence in every area that Australian families need.

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