Jenny Ware (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak against this motion that relates to the economic management, or should I say the economic mismanagement, that has been demonstrated in the last budget brought down by the Albanese Labor government. This has again demonstrated that this is not a government that is interested in governing for all Australians. The motion here talks about easing cost-of-living pressures, building more homes for Australians and investing in a Future Made in Australia. If only that were the case. This budget has not eased cost-of-living pressures for most Australians, for Middle Australians, for those Australians who have again been forgotten by a Labor government.

If we turn first of all to cost-of-living pressures, this is the main issue that people in my electorate of Hughes talk to me about. Over the past two years, we have seen government spending of Whitlamesque proportions, spending largely in the wrong areas, government mismanagement and waste. That government spending has led directly to the cost-of-living pressures. It is for this reason the RBA has set its inflation target rates at two to three per cent for the government. For three budgets in a row, the government has failed, on each occasion, to bring its own fiscal policy into line to bring that inflation rate down. That is the reason we have seen 12 interest rate increases over the life of this government. That is the reason that the average Australian household is now paying $24,000 a year more in mortgage repayments than two years ago. That is the reason that property investors have had to lift rents. And that is the reason that rents have increased in this country by, on average, 9.1 per cent over the past two years, according to CoreLogic.

With housing the largest individual item of expenditure for Australian budgets, this demonstrates the government's failure on cost of living. In fact, Labor's spending has further fuelled inflation. The best way that the Labor government could address cost-of-living pressures would be to lower inflation through decreasing its own spending, through cutting the wasteful spending in the wrong areas. That would then pave the way for the RBA to cut interest rates. It would then provide some relief for Australians paying off mortgages, relief for Australians paying rent.

We can talk about the government building more homes. The government talks a big talk on this. We've had the headlines of $10 billion going into housing, with 1.2 million homes to be built over the next five years. Yet we have a housing affordability crisis in this country. It has been there for a number of years, but it has got progressively worse under this government. Under this government, there has not been a single home built in two years, despite all of the headlines. The government has failed to address the critical lack of supply. The government has also fuelled demand for housing with its rampant migration policy.

We have the highest rate of migration in Australia now since the 1950s—almost one million new immigrants over two years. For every four immigrants coming into this country, we are building only one dwelling. The maths just do not stack up. While sustainable and sensible immigration is applauded, and immigration has built our country—I am supportive of sensible immigration—this government's current immigration policy is failing Australians. It is clueless and it is also cruel. How can we realistically ask others around the world to come to our country and yet not provide them with sufficient housing and sufficient infrastructure? It's also grossly unfair to the Australians who are already living here who are trying to get into the housing market, whether that be into private ownership or into private rental.

This is a government that is great at headlines and great at slogans, but not great at all on delivery. To build 1.2 million homes over five years requires 240,000 new homes each and every year. Labor's own National Housing Supply and Affordability Council has said there is no chance Labor will reach its housing targets—so Labor's own people say it can't reach its housing targets. But what we have seen though is what Labor governments do best—straight out of the Whitlam playbook and the Rudd playbook—we've built a bureaucracy, and it's just come out that $30 million has been spent by this government on consultants and executives, with its housing agency yet to build a single house.

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