Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's a great privilege to be able to speak on the budget papers, a machination in this House which is an extension of the appropriations bills, because it's an opportunity for the opposition to share just how difficult people are finding trying to make ends meet under these cost-of-living pressures that have been inflicted on them by a poor government.

I have got people in my electorate, elderly people, dealing with power prices that have near tripled. Elderly people, such as friends of my mum, are making decisions not to turn a heater on in the middle of winter in fear that they have no understanding as to how they can make the power bill payments, so they choose to put another layer of clothing on rather than inflict upon themselves a greater cost.

I have working families, double-income households, mums and dads working full time and trying to pay off a mortgage. On 12 consecutive occasions since this government came to office, their mortgage payments have gone up and up and up. There's actually a new economic term these days for those working families. They're called the 'new working poor', who are making decisions around what meals they can put on the table each night for their families because their disposable incomes under this government have become so minuscule that the only way that they can make savings to try and make ends meet is through the different purchasing decisions they make when it comes to feeding their own children, because they've got to make the car payment, they've got to make the house payment and they've got to make the insurance payment, all of which have gone up under this government. I'll get to the reason why when I speak on the inflationary pressures.

Those on the other side of the parliament come to this chamber and say that there's $300 worth of relief coming for energy prices. That is a bandaid on a bullet wound. When your electricity payments have gone up $700 for the year and their idea of economic relief is $75 each quarter, that is laughable. But then, from an inflationary perspective, when you use that $75 handout, a previous parliament's prime minister once said, 'When someone tells you something is for free, that just means that somebody else is paying for it.' So the question we have to ask ourselves around the policy of handouts is: is it actually helping the economic environment at the moment, or is it kicking the tin down the road, where someone is going to have to pay for it in the long term?

When we look at the budget papers and what the big costs are on our balance sheet, the two biggest ones that we have into the forward estimates are (1) the NDIS, and I'll get to some of the out-of-control spending that's happening in that space—ultimately, the pensioners in my electorate, who are choosing to sit in the cold and are still making tax payments, will end up paying for that—and (2) interest on debt. So, when we borrow money to hand out as handouts, we're only kicking the tin down the road and making it a problem for our children.

This government have been appalling managers of our economy, and it's been a trainwreck since the day they arrived. Prior to the election, on 200 occasions they said on the record that they'd provide a $275 tax relief. They're trying to say now that by giving the $300 they're honouring that commitment, but the reality is that, as I've outlined earlier on, there has been a $700 increase, and the $300 goes nowhere near fixing it.

The reason they're poor economic managers is that they've got different priorities. When we were in government, we looked to address the real cost-of-living pressures. When these guys have got a spare $450 million, they run off around the country delivering a referendum on the Voice. Not one state supported them—not one single state. It was near-on 70 per cent across the country, with the exception of one of the territories. It was the greatest waste of money our country has experienced and an enormous policy failure.

And I don't know who makes the strategy decisions for the Australian Labor Party, because, immediately after that, somebody decided that it would be a good idea if they went and let a couple of hundred detainees out of detention to run around the country. Yes, the courts said that one of them needed to be let out, but the court didn't indicate that everyone had to be let out. Murderers, paedophiles—some of the worst characters who we had locked up were let out, and then the taxpayer was asked to house them. So I've got pensioners who can't turn the heater on and we're providing housing in a cost-of-living crisis for the most undesirable.

Then, as I've mentioned, there have been the 12 hikes in interest rates. If you have a household mortgage, under this government you have felt every single one of them. You have felt the pain. And we can't be sure that it's over yet. We can't be sure that there's not another rate rise coming. What happens is we've got monetary policy from the Reserve Bank and we've got fiscal policy from us. The Reserve Bank of Australia have made it clear that they have got two feet firmly pressed on the brake pedal of our economy, trying to slow the economy down so they can take pressure off interest rates so that families' mortgage payments can start tracking down. They're trying to get inflation back into that 2-3 per cent range, which we've asked them to do. Meanwhile, as you've heard openly from those on the other side, they're shovelling money into the economy by way of handouts. They're shovelling money into our economy, stimulating our economy—the very opposite of what the Reserve Bank is asking them to do. That's $315 billion dollars worth of extra stimulus money since this government has come to office into the economy, working in the exact opposite economic contrast of what the Reserve Bank is trying to achieve.

Basic fundamentals are being overlooked. I spoke earlier on about the NDIS and some of the wasteful spending that's going on. We heard in the parliament more recently about the outrageous spends in the NDIS—money being spent on cars and overseas holidays. There was even some nefarious expenditure around prostitution and cash being taken out of ATMs to purchase illicit drugs. It's just unfathomable that taxpayers' funds would be used in such a way with little or no oversight by a government who claimed to be the very architects of this program. You'll hear those on the other side talk about a trillion dollars worth of debt that they inherited, but can I remind you that during COVID we put JobSeeker in place to save those businesses and to save those families. We put it in place for a period of six months. When we said we had to turn this funding off, the shadow Treasurer, the member for Rankin, said that this economy would fall off a cliff if we stopped this funding. They espoused that the only way we could save the economy from falling off a cliff was to continue to handouts, but we made the prudent decision to stop it. And what happened? The economy didn't fall off a cliff. Eventually, the nation deserves better. The nation deserves the adults back in the room when it comes to managing prudent economics of our nation.

The pensioners in my electorate deserve better economic managers so that when next winter comes they don't have to make a decision as to whether or not they sit with an extra layer of clothing on. We have to fix the energy crisis, because with the energy crisis we have been told that the energy from the sun was going to be free and that the wind was going to be free, but the only thing that's happening is that power prices are going through the roof and they will continue to do so under this government.

Debate adjourned.

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