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

To be honest, I'm a little bit surprised that there aren't any government speakers on this motion to take note of the 2024-25 budget papers. It's been left to the Greens leader—the member for Melbourne—and me to talk about this important topic. It is important because the budget is the economic framework which determines economic activity, which determines how businesses and household budgets are shaped into the future. There were some sentences in the member for Melbourne's speech which would resonate, but the difficulty is that the Greens are not part of the solution; in fact, they are a part of the problem.

Let me tell you: the Greens want to take this country down a path of social instability, a path lacking societal cohesion. I really worry that the Greens may get more seats in inner city suburbs. I've always said that the worst Labor member is always going to be better than the best Greens member because the policies that the Greens put forward are absolutely nutty.

The Greens leader spoke about the duopoly of Coles and Woolworths. I'll just say this: the Nationals and, now, the Liberals are putting forward a divestiture policy and plan which has some positivity about it. To be fair, many young people, when they go for their first full-time job—in regional areas, in particular—often present a curriculum vitae which includes stacking shelves and working check-outs at one of the big supermarkets. Coles and Woolworths employ many people, particularly in regional Australia.

When I was the Minister for Small Business, I had the privilege to go to Melbourne to attend a dinner where Coles hosted small-business operators from around the country and handed out awards to the best of those. Those businesses would not have had the opportunity to put their stock, their goods and the endeavours of their hard work on national supermarket shelves if it weren't for Coles—the case with Woolworths is similar— and owed those supermarkets for that opportunity. It's easy to kick, and kick hard, when the pile on is happening. We've seen it with banks, and we've seen it now with the big duopoly.

I would suggest that people make sure they look at FoodWorks, IGA and other independent grocers when considering where to buy their groceries, but it's true that grocery prices are up. The member for Melbourne was right when he said that. In fact, food has gone up 11 per cent since the Albanese government took over in May 2022. It's not just the price of food that has increased. Health costs are up 11 per cent. Education costs are up 11 per cent and housing costs are up 15 per cent.

I listened carefully to the Greens leader's contribution, and I reiterate: they are part of the problem in Melbourne, his home state. The Jacinta Allan government doesn't want gas in new homes; it doesn't want gas full stop. It is trying to ban the logging industry. What are we going to build homes with? It's hard enough to get the metal joists and the metal brackets for homes, which are often imported, with the Greens' mad policies of jacking up the price of power and jacking up the prices of everything else. How does a new homebuyer get into the market? It's almost impossible. Then we have his offsider, the member for Brisbane, running around suggesting that it's all the Commonwealth's problem. In fact, a large lot of it has to do with development applications at local government level and with social housing, which is—or always was—the remit of state governments, and yet the member for Brisbane makes out: 'Vote for me. It's all going to be changed, because I will change it.' When the Prime Minister dresses him down in parliament for that very fact, I tend to agree with the leader of the country.

Under this Labor government, rent is up 15 per cent and finance and insurance are up 17 per cent. Electricity has increased 22 per cent since May 2022. And here we had a prime minister, prior to being elected, saying on no less than 97 occasions that he was going to put in place a $275 cut to power bills and that prices would be lower under a Labor government than what was happening under the coalition. It was all a folly. It was just a lure to get votes, and it was misplaced. Ask anyone whether they're paying more now than what they were under the coalition government and the resounding answer will be: yes, they are. People are poorer. Gas is up 25 per cent. How do household budgets, industry, farms, factories and small business afford such cost increases?

The 2024-25 budget handed down by the member for Rankin was an election sweetener, and not a very good one. We see the fact that no Labor members are coming in to defend it. No Labor members are out there promoting it, and why would they? Why would you promote a dead, stinking cat? That is basically what it is. It is not providing hope. It is not providing a future or a vision for this country, certainly not for those workers that the once-proud Labor Party stood for. No, it's not the case.

Regional, rural and remote Australians have missed out again. It's only the Liberals and the Nationals who look out for them, thanks to the member for Dickson's fantastic budget-in-reply speech. Not only was it a very good speech on his feet on the floor of parliament, but his speech at a function later that night was one of the best examples of having a vision for this country from opposition that I have had the privilege of listening to, and I've heard a few.

Labor, we know, have stayed true to their ethos—that is, spin, bereft of substance, particularly for those in rural and regional Australia. I really worry about irrigation communities. Those river communities, I might add, grow the food and the fibre that put the breakfast, lunch and dinner on our plates and the clothes on our backs, not just for this country but for many others too. I really worry for those people, those hard-working farmers. In the budget papers, the amount of money to be spent on water buybacks was marked NFP: not for publication. That is a great disturbing element for our farmers, because they know not how much water will be bought out of those communities—Deniliquin, Griffith, Hillston, Coleambally, Leeton, Narrandera and all the rest. The concern there is not just for farmers. They'll get the big cheque. The market will be distorted. The price will go up because of the Commonwealth entering the water buying. What will happen, though, is that the local hairdresser, the cafe and the schools will all suffer because there are fewer people and less economic activity in those communities. Labor uses the guise of doing it for the environment. They have taxpayer funded ads on the television, and people in regional Australia get quite insulted by the ads saying they're not good stewards of the environment. That is the inference in these advertisements.

Even the supposed tax cuts that Labor is putting in—it's robbing Peter to pay Paul. They're taking with one hand and then giving just a little bit back with the other. They call it a tax cut, but they are promoting it via a huge multimillion dollar advertisement splurge. It's not necessary. It is just a waste of money. They'd be better off spending it on regional health and regional education. Goodness knows—if you looked at the NAPLAN figures this morning, a third of children are unable to read or write at an acceptable level. And then you've got television spruiking Labor's budget. It wasn't a good budget. It simply wasn't a good budget. It was a typical Labor budget. Labor is always about the politics, always about the re-election tactics, never about the outcomes and the people.

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