Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Spence comes in here and takes credit, on behalf of the Labor government, for the Australian Fair Work Commission's recent wage rise of 3¾ per cent. It's like coming in here and taking credit for the sun coming up. I'll give the member for Spence a little heads up. The sun coming up was coalition policy too, and you can't take credit for these sorts of things when the Fair Work Commission is supposedly, or should be, at arm's length of government.

He talks about that side being there for and on behalf of the workers. I think we're all in favour of workers, but we're also, on this side, in favour of businesses, and businesses are doing it so tough. But let's just consider the workers for a minute. Let's consider the fact that real wages have gone down under the Albanese government. Let's consider that the cost of health is up nine per cent, the cost of food is up 10 per cent, the cost of housing has risen by 12 per cent and the cost of transport is up 13 per cent. There's the cost of power. The cost of electricity is up 18 per cent, and the cost of gas, if you can get it, is up 25 per cent, and we've got Victoria wanting to shut down gas completely. The cost of insurance is up 26 per cent. Right across the board, workers—those people that Labor purports to represent, to stand up for—are paying more. Every time they go to the petrol bowser, every time they go to the supermarket check-out and every time they flick the power switch, they are paying more. They are paying through the nose.

And then we've got a Labor government that says nothing and does very little when the unions move in and take over, just like they did the other day, with John Setka saying that they were going to stop work on all projects that the Australian Football League is trying to put forward, because they don't like somebody who once worked for the former Australian Building and Construction Commission. We've got, dare I say, construction companies in collapse mode. Those small businesses who build houses and who build infrastructure are doing it so tough at the moment, so very tough, and I don't see too many Labor members getting up and supporting them. I don't see too many Labor members getting up and calling out the CFMEU or other union bosses who are making it so tough for our construction industry and so tough for those small businesses which are trying to put a roof over people's heads.

Then we've got the cash splash, with $40 million being spent on advertising the government's stage 3 tax cuts. That's $40 million which could have been far better spent on health services—or on anything—but our televisions are being bombarded with advertising which is just so unnecessary. Okay, the tax cuts are there, and people will appreciate it when they get rebates and when they get tax cuts. I appreciate it's something that they did not previously have, but you don't need to keep ramming it down their throats on social media and television—just like the people in regional Australia don't need to keep being told that the Murray-Darling Basin is kaput. They don't need to keep being told that Labor is restoring our river system. I appreciate that we have a different view on that from those opposite. But when our farmers, when our irrigators and when our small-business people in the Murray-Darling Basin are continually being told that the river system is being restored when they know that water is being bought out and that it's actually going to destroy their river towns, their river economies, they know that it is a bridge too far. The amount of money being spent on advertising these tax cuts, quite frankly, is just gross and so unnecessary.

Businesses are under pressure. And because businesses are under pressure, the first thing they don't do is they don't employ people. They're the workers that this other side, the government, are supposedly representing. We have got a cost-of-living crisis in this nation that is hurting so many people when they go to do their family household budgets. We have a cost-of-living crisis brought about by those opposite and their policies, and, instead of doing something about it, they're just talking about the things that are so unnecessary. They spent $500 million on a divisive referendum; they're not doing much about the economy or our small businesses or our workers.

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