Simon Kennedy (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm speaking against this motion and the budget, and that is because this government is mismanaging this budget and also the economy. Who's paying the price for it? It's everyday Australians. If we look at the cost of living, one of the biggest costs is housing. This budget does next to nothing to fix housing supply. Today, the average loan on a house or unit is $740,000—what an eye-watering figure to burden the average Australian household with—and those average Australian households are paying $24,000 more than they were just two years ago, and these are the ones lucky enough to own a house. Those that are renting are paying 9.1 per cent more in rent, with no increase to capital assets. This government is crushing Middle Australia and not listening to their concerns.

At this time when we're struggling for housing supply, somehow we have builders and construction companies going out of business, and they're not going out of business in normal times; they're going out of business at record rates in the middle of a housing crisis. It beggars belief. What are the government doing at this time when they shouldn't be looking at raising interest rates? They're increasing their level of spending. Make no mistake about it: the budget and its economic management are expansionary, and, when you've got an expansionary budget with this economy, you are not going to see interest rates go down. You're going to see Middle Australia get piled with pressure and collapse underneath it.

One other thing I don't think you see anywhere in this motion is a mention of productivity, and I refer to comments from the Reserve Bank governor, Michele Bullock, from November last year, as reported in the AFR, about wage rises:

Although wage rises of around about 4 per cent in a normal context of productivity growth aren't necessarily inconsistent with our inflation target. If we don't have any productivity growth, they're on the high side and they're going to contribute to rises in costs.

Given this inflationary environment, these wage rises that those opposite like to crow about are actually increasing costs, increasing inflation and leading to pressure on keeping interest rates where they are or, even worse, on increasing them. You've got the Reserve Bank highlighting this uncertainty that Middle Australia is now facing. In the seven months between these comments from the Reserve Bank governor and today, what has changed? It's only gotten worse. We've got an inflationary budget and we've seen the last reading of inflation be the highest we've had this year.

The government will try and convince you that the economy is growing, but how does it do this? It's actually record migration that's being used to paper over the weakness in the Australian economy. The truth of this growing economy is much murkier. We're in a household recession, and productivity has ground to a halt. What does this mean for the average Australian family? It means their real income is down 7½ per cent in the last two years alone. It means they can't buy as much as they could before. It means they can't afford a house and they can't afford rent. It means the 528,000 new entrants in the economy are competing for just 170,000 new homes, and this maths does not add up. The government will try and convince you and the rest of Middle Australia that the economy is growing, but you and your family are just getting poorer.

They are ignoring productivity. Productivity growth has been responsible for 80 per cent of the increase in living standards for the average Australian over the last 30 years. But under this government they're going backwards at now minus five per cent, and one of the lowest recordings of the last 25 years was the last one. Productivity is an integral part of making our federation work better. This government should be incentivising our states to take on productivity increasing reforms, like tackling stamp duty or tackling payroll tax. But, instead, it's just punishing state governments with its failures.

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