Phillip Thompson (Herbert, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

The future of Australia depends on a sound economic plan built upon free market principles that allow businesses to thrive and working individuals to get ahead. It depends on a plan that allows small businesses to have a fair go without being punished or pushed out of the market by government funded enterprises. It would allow Australians to keep more of what they earn, not deprive them of their hard-earned income. The Albanese Labor government's so-called Future Made in Australia Bill goes against all sound economic judgement and threatens to cripple the economy. This bill would overwhelm small businesses with more government intervention that will crush the private sector, and it will punish hardworking taxpayers by driving up the cost of living even further through reckless inflationary spending. Labor's Future Made in Australia Bill might be designed to score political points in the short-term, but it will cost Australians severely.

We've already witnessed the disastrous effects of Labor's economic policies on businesses around Australia. Since Labor came to office, 19,000 businesses have entered into insolvency—a record 25-year high. The number of businesses at risk of collapse has increased by 20 per cent since last year. Worker productivity has plummeted, economic growth has stalled, and the cost of doing business has skyrocketed. These hardships have reverberated around the country and are felt in regional towns like Townsville, where small businesses have been hit hard by rising energy bills, insurance costs and commercial rents. I can't visit a business in Townsville without the owner bringing up how much harder it is to make a decent living since the government has taken over. As their expenses mount, they have become less able to invest in growth and sustain job creation, creating a vicious cycle of economic uncertainty in the community. Labor's economic mismanagement has devastating implications on small businesses, and this new bill only promises to deepen this crisis.

This bill will also inflict more cost-of-living pressures on working individuals by unleashing inflationary spending on the economy. This comes at a time when Labor has already shown itself incapable of controlling the inflation caused by its own economic mismanagement. On Labor's watch, prices for working households have skyrocketed by 18 per cent. Workers are now paying 20 per cent more in income tax, and households are losing an average of 10 per cent in savings. The Prime Minister promised that mortgages would go down under his government. They've only gone up. We throw around numbers in this place every day, but behind every statistic is a real person experiencing real financial pain. Families are wondering how they can keep up with their mortgage payments which are rising by tens of thousands of dollars. Working individuals are struggling to keep their heads above water, digging into their savings and taking on extra jobs to make ends meet.

The results are clear. This Labor government has proven itself inept and untrustworthy when it comes to managing the economy of today, let alone the economy of the future. The fact is that Australia is the only G10 economy where core inflation has gone up since December. Labor has spent $315 billion in new spending since the election, with disastrous results for the Australian people. You'd think it would be time to re-evaluate the strategy, but instead Labor is pushing forward with the same plan: to ramp up more inflationary spending to a tune of $22.7 billion through this poorly drafted bill. It's Australian families, working individuals, who will pay for it. They'll be forced to shoulder the resulting tax burden and the cost-of-living pressures.

Regional Australians, in particular, are suffering from the economic failures of this government. Three-quarters of regional Australians, including people in Townsville, are saying that the skyrocketing cost of living is already their biggest concern. Forty-one per cent of regional Australians have said they are experiencing financial difficulties, according to the recent Mood of the Bush survey. A major manufacturing business in the electorate of Herbert wrote to me a few months ago, telling me that the cost of power has more than doubled. The owner said to me, 'Government policy is driving inflation,' and they are exactly right. Another local resident told me how their power bills have gone up by 37 per cent. They are age pensioners. It's not an increase they can afford. What's the government's solution to this national problem? It's not to solve the underlying supply issues in the electricity network. Labor's economic mismanagement has inflicted a real cost-of-living crisis on hardworking Australians, and Labor's Future Made in Australia Bill promises to take even more from them.

This bill expands the power of the government to pick and choose those who get to be winners in a government directed economy. This begs the question: if these industries are already commercially viable, why do they need to be bankrolled by the government? Under this scheme, the Treasurer will get to decide which businesses are worthy of investment. But the Treasurer has never owned or operated a business, and his bureaucrats already have a track record of suffocating the entrepreneurial spirit that has made our nation prosperous.

Meanwhile, through this bill, you can be sure the friends of Labor will receive a big slice of the cake. Labor is promising $22.7 billion to the so-called national interest sector but refuses to be transparent and specific about who stands to benefit. We've already seen Labor breaking their own rules to invest in pet projects, like Minister Husic's decision to bankroll PsiQuantum without any departmental consultation, bypassing the National Interest Framework. Likewise, the Treasury was not consulted about the decision to back solar manufacturing, which it later concluded was not a sound investment. Even when Labor has attempted to subsidise the mineral industry through its production credits for nickel factories, price pressures still spiralled out of control thanks to rising energy costs, increased taxes and overbearing workplace laws. If Labor has been unable to empower the industries of today, how can we expect it to advance the industries of tomorrow?

Economists across the board are already sounding the alarm that Labor's poorly designed Future Made in Australia Bill will do more harm than good. The Chair of the Productivity Commission, the government's key economic adviser, appointed by the Treasurer, has said, 'We risk creating a class of businesses that is reliant on government subsidies'. If we are supporting industries that don't have long-term competitive advantage, that can be an ongoing cost. A former chair of the Productivity Commission has said that the Future Made in Australia bill is a 'fool's errand' that will risk repeating the mistakes of the past by propping up 'political favourites'. It's not just the economists who are sceptical. Even Labor's union backers at the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union have been reported by the ABC as saying they don't want the Treasury to have a central role in Labor's economic plan because the Treasury has 'limited expertise'. So, while the Future Made in Australia Bill allows Labor to pick and choose who gets to benefit in a state commanded economy, small businesses and working individuals will ultimately be the biggest losers.

Australians deserve an economic policy that secures a future where small businesses can thrive and working individuals can prosper. The coalition will ensure that into the future, and we will do so by rejecting Labor's damaging policies and implementing sound economic principles that benefit all Australians. We won't revert to quick political stunts like handouts and empty slogans. We will advance a plan to get us back on track and back to basics.

We will start by reining in the crushing inflation that Labor has inflicted on the country through its reckless government spending. We will ensure affordable and reliable energy for businesses and households. We'll make Australia an attractive place to do business by cutting back the government intervention which is stifling entrepreneurship and suffocating the economy. We want to get out of the way of business, not in its way. We will allow small business to fairly compete without having to worry about market dominance by government funded corporations. We will champion critical industries such as mining, manufacturing and agriculture to be able to do business without overbearing regulation and red tape. We will promote healthy market competition, not the interests of lobbyists and the government's pet projects. We will ensure that every Australian has the ability to own a home and not be locked out of the housing market because of cost-of-living pressures. We will get back on track and back to basics. Labor might be scheming to solve the cost of living by throwing taxpayers' money around, but we will make it easier to do business, and we will lower taxes so hardworking Australians can keep more of what they earn. The Labor government's Future Made in Australia is a political stunt designed with the next election in mind, but our policies will be built upon sound economic principles that will set up this nation for success for generations.

Businesses around the country have been reaching out to local members saying how tough they're doing it. Just yesterday, I was stopped in the hallway by someone who was a big supporter of the government and the Labor Party and who told me that this bill will cripple them; this bill will not support them. How can this bill do what it claims to do, which is to make the future better in Australia, when it doesn't even look after the industries that we have here? I think that has reverberated around the country in all of our electorates. For that reason and many others, the coalition will not be supporting this bill.

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