Keith Wolahan (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I note that I rise to speak after the Prime Minister, who's leaving the chamber, as are those behind him.

You'll stay? Thank you. I listened carefully to what the Prime Minister said. He spoke about hope and optimism for this nation's future. The title of the Future Made in Australia Bill 2024 is telling. It's a title that reasonable people might agree on, but it's the content that matters. Too often in this parliament we've seen a cute title with something that has broad appeal that we all want, but then when you peel back the actual document and the actual policy, it has nothing to do with the title that is there.

Australia is a great nation. It is a prosperous nation. It has a history that it can be proud of, and it has a future that we look forward to—in fact, a future that drives other people from around the world to this nation because we are optimistic about our future. The Labor Party has a great tradition. It has been around for many decades. The Liberal Party, another party of government, has a great tradition. And one of the things that divides us is a philosophical view on the role of government.

I want to give a practical example of that. In my electorate, there is a small Italian family-owned business called Fratelli Engineering. It actually makes things in Australia now. It makes things in Australia right now. And that manufacturing facility is on its knees. One of the reasons it's on its knees is because it is trying to compete with the inflated costs and prices from big government projects in Victoria. It can't compete with that. When we talk about the role of government and the intervention of government having an actual practical effect, that's happening right now. For example, the North East Link, which was originally budgeted at $10 billion and has now blown out to $26 billion, has inflated costs. When you look at big construction projects, there is a 30 per cent premium of doing business in Victoria. There isn't a 30 per cent premium on doing business with Fratelli Engineering, a private family-owned company; there's a 30 per cent premium on doing business with the state. As soon as the state is the one that is signing the cheques and deciding what is to occur, all contractors know it is a free for all. All know.

At the heart of this bill is arrogance from the government—they know better; they know best. The Prime Minister finished on a claim to optimism. There's nothing optimistic about your view of the capacity of companies like Fratelli Engineering to build things here, when you think that you know better. So that philosophical difference on the role of government is not just an academic exercise for political science classes at universities. It matters to this nation and to the future of this nation. The heart of this bill is that it's driven by a different view of government. It's about who decides. Of course we want more things made in Australia. Of course we need more resilient supply chains. War and pandemic have proven that. The question is: who is better placed to decide that?

There are members on the other benches that know this to be true. I'm on the House Standing Committee on Economics, and here is that committee's Better competition, better prices report. The chair of that committee is the very competent member for Fraser, who has an actual PhD in economics from Yale, no less. The foreword to that document says this:

Competition and economic dynamism underpin everything we do in our daily life—

that's the first sentence; 'everything we do in our daily life,' so this bill actually matters—

whether it is shopping at the local supermarket; using our credit card to make a payment; using an app on our mobile phones to buy an airline ticket or obtain the latest news; and much more.

He goes on on the second page of the foreword to say this about government spending and government interference:

Government now plays a major role in the economy, providing health care, education, social welfare, infrastructure, defence and more. Improving the effectiveness of government services is critical to long-run productivity growth. … Market design and market stewardship are key.

Finally, the member for Fraser says, 'Australia is at a crossroads,' and refers to low productivity growth. No government could cover themselves in glory on Australia's productivity growth, but we know that it is on life support under this government.

Why does productivity growth matter? Well, Deputy Speaker, I would like to take you to another document, the Intergenerational report. The 2023 Intergenerational report has some alarming calls to action for both sides of this chamber. On page 144, it has the projection of total spending for this nation. Chart 7.2 shows real Australian government spending per person, in 2021-22 dollars, so we're adjusting this for inflation. On current spending, after a peak in the pandemic, we are at about $24,000 per person in Australia of Commonwealth government spending. That is projected out to 2062-63 to be $40,000 per person. That's in today's dollars. If there are no improvements in productivity, the average wage is about $95,000 and the median wage is about $65,000. And there we are, spending $40,000 per person at a Commonwealth level.

The key lesson in the Intergenerational report is that, if we are to be a prosperous nation, we have to bring government spending under control. As the member for Fraser noted, competition and dynamism are everything. They link to national defence, to job security and to a sense of ourselves and whether we can afford to pay for the schools that we have, the infrastructure that we speak about and all of the things that the Prime Minister spoke about with great bluster and enthusiasm. The clear lesson from the Intergenerational report is that government is not the answer. Government should be there to help private sector companies like Fratelli Engineering. So who is the person who knows better than the private sector? Who is the person who knows more than Sam Leo, the owner and founder of Fratelli Engineering? Well, it's the Treasurer.

Unlike the member for Fraser, whose praises I sung about his qualifications and expertise in economics, the Treasurer's expertise isn't in economics. His thesis wasn't on economics; it was on politics. I won't bore the House with the contents of his thesis, but here are the chapter titles. 'Brawler statesman' is chapter 1, with a subchapter on 'Revisiting prime ministerial power'. Chapter 2 is 'Prime ministerial leadership'. 'Leading Labor' is chapter 3. Chapter 4 is 'Controlling cabinet'. On page 119 there's a subchapter called 'Picking winners'. That's interesting. When you go to that subchapter, it's not a warning against the government picking winners; it's an example of how the Prime Minister can deploy, exercise and wield power. Chapter 6 is 'Throwing grenades', and there's a subchapter there called 'Us and them'. That's what I heard in the Prime Minister's speech. It wasn't a speech about hope and optimism for our nation's future. It wasn't a speech about building more Fratelli Engineerings. It was a speech about us and them, and 'us' is not the Australian people; 'us' is the Labor Party and its affiliated unions. That is the measure of success: us and them. There's another chapter on 'Pressing the flesh' and other lessons in how to obtain, deploy and hold on to power. We hear a lot of talk about principles, but what we see in practice more often from this government and this Prime Minister is an exercise in protecting power.

The bill that's before us has had significant and important criticism placed upon it, including from no less than the government appointed head of the Productivity Commission, Danielle Wood, who said:

We risk creating a class of businesses that is reliant on government subsidies, and that can be very effective in coming back for more.

I just took you to the projected government spending. On that projection, there won't be any 'more'. But what we do know is that, when the North East Link is finished and the 30 per cent premiums on salaries and conditions are over—I wish those on those projects the very best; that's great for them and their families. But when that's all said and done and there's no capacity to move on to the next project and they turn to companies like Fratelli Engineering to get a job, they won't exist anymore, because they will have left. That's borne out now. That's not a projection into the future when this project is finished or the SRL is finished. That's happening now.

We are seeing in Victoria a flight of small and medium businesses out of the state. Every other state in the last financial year saw an increase in the aggregate number of small businesses. Queensland saw an increase of 11,000 in the last financial year. Victoria saw a decrease of 7,400. Many of those shut down never to open again. Many of those took off and went to an area that had perhaps slightly better conditions. But it is an important lesson to this Labor government to look at another Labor government to see how your well-intentioned projects and government interference drive private capital away. It's a warning, and it's not being heeded. There are many Victorian Labor member sitting on those benches over there, and they see it—they see companies like Fratelli Engineering closing their doors and moving off.

It has been pointed out by respected economists, including the Productivity Commissioner, who said what you should be doing is tax reform. Tax reform is how we can get off the private sector's back and actually encourage the proper investments we need to make things in Australia. Other economists like Professor Richard Holden noted that there are significant concerns in this about encouraging rent seeking. In the media and in this House we'll often hear the government members say, 'What are you going to do about it?' Well, the first thing we will do is bring humility to this debate. We will bring humility to say that we don't know better. I'm not an engineer. I haven't built things in Australia, but I know many people who have. The first thing we'll do is listen to them. When you listen to them they will tell you that they just need some breathing space to compete properly—not with government but with the rest of the world. When Australians do that, there is no limit to what they can achieve. We've seen that in many other enterprises.

The coalition is committed to getting back to economic basics, and at the heart of getting back to economic basics is an acknowledgement of and self-reflection on humility. We might have big egos in this place, but building things in Australia is not what we are good at. But there are many people in this country who are, and they deserve us to have their backs and not be on their backs.

We will also rein in inflation. When I spoke about that increase in government spending, the Reserve Bank had been very clear that that is a key contributor to inflation. It is important that we rein government spending in. We will wind back the regulatory layers of red tape that have been added by this government. I want to give an example of where red tape has a real-life consequence, and it's in the area of national security. At the moment if a young person applies to join the Defence Force, some of them aren't hearing back for a year or 18 months later. That has directly contributed to one in 12 full-time Defence Force personnel being absent. We're short 5,000 members of the full-time Defence Force. Red tape isn't an academic line that we throw out that has no meaning or purpose; it has consequences, in national security as well as the economy.

We will also introduce lower, fairer and simpler taxes for all Australians. They won't be about the government picking winners and saying, 'We know best.' It will be principled across the board and it will allow those that will succeed to do their best and those that won't to have those resources diverted elsewhere. That's the very essence of a free-market economy—it is what has served this nation well and it is what will provide the future prosperity so that we're not putting the burden of $40,000 per person on government spending into the future.

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