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

My apologies if I misinterpreted that, but that's how I interpreted it. This is nothing but a distraction, and it brings out the lack of economic credibility. It was actually mid-afternoon before the shadow minister for communications was engaged on this, despite the debate being brought on by the Prime Minister in an attempt to change the media narrative. The only problem is that the media has seen through this. It's not getting picked up, it's not getting any buy-in and it's not getting any cut-through. We debated the bill for two hours before the briefing of the shadow communications minister was to get underway, so desperate are they to try and create a wedge or a public headline.

This isn't the first time we've had scare campaigns. People will remember the 'Mediscare' campaign. It actually worked. It was much closer to an election, but it worked; it did pull votes away. But this is not working. People have seen this movie before, and they're looking straight through it. The Australian people have looked through this distraction, and they're much more focused on the cost of living. They're much more focused on how they're going to pay their mortgage and much more focused on why energy bills continue to go up—and will continue to go up—after this one-off subsidy runs out.

Everyday Australians will not forget that they were promised a $275 reduction on their energy bills. Instead, the average Australian household in New South Wales and in my electorate is facing energy prices that have risen by over 20 per cent since Labor came to office—not a $275 reduction, but a 20 per cent increase. That has left some households more than $1,000 poorer a year. They were promised their mortgages would be better. The Prime Minister said that in the lead-up to the election. That hasn't happened. Interest rates are through the roof. Inflation is stubbornly high. Interest rates are coming down in New Zealand, Canada and the US. They're not coming down here. Why? It's because of the persistent government spending. The Reserve Bank is trying to keep a foot on the brake. That's why they're leaving interest rates where they are. Meanwhile, with its loose fiscal policy, this government is jamming its foot on the accelerator, the economy is shuddering and staggering, and everyday Australians are left bearing the price. It's mortgage-holders and renters in our society who those across the aisle claim to represent and want to help the most. But these are the people getting smashed up and crushed in the cost-of-living crisis. It's people in the outer Western Sydney suburbs, the outer regions of Melbourne and the peri-urban and rural areas in the rest of our states and territories.

If you wanted more evidence that this bill is not real—normally, you get a briefing as part of the consideration of the bill, and we go through normal internal processes. This did not happen. We will review this bill in the usual way, but the farcical approach from this government is to do things the other way around. We've brought it on for debate; the Prime Minister got up and started talking about it before we'd even seen it or had a chance to talk about it. It's 'debate first, consult second'. It's a silly stunt, and that's all it is—a stunt. There's no need for it. We would much rather be focused on things we could work on in a bipartisan manner, like getting the NDIS under control. I get flooded with requests for the NDIS. People talk about getting funding cut, not getting funding, or getting abused. I'd love to work out how we can fix some of these endemic problems with the NDIS, like we did on aged care, where there was a bipartisan approach. We actually are getting the aged-care sector under control fiscally.

The nonmarket sector of our economy is now the highest it has ever been. That means things like health care and child care. They're all very important things, but as that part of the economy grows, it's crowding out the business sector, or the market sector of the economy, which actually makes money and provides taxation revenue to pay for all these things. Why don't we sit down and talk about this, or about how to improve productivity in this country? Productivity is down seven per cent. Why does productivity matter? If you look at the last 30 years of Australia and at all the wealth and improvement in our living standards, 80 per cent of the increase in gross national income has come from productivity. That means, from the same amount of input or labour, you get more output. That is what productivity does. But productivity for the last two years is down 7½ per cent. That means, for the same amount of labour, you produce 7½ per cent less. That is unheralded. We have never had that in the history of our country. What does that mean? It means average Australian households get poorer. We would have been in a recession for a year and a half without immigration. The only way this country is not shrinking as an economy is from bringing more people in. We're not growing the wealth of the people existing here; we're just bringing more people in. So Coles, Woolies and CBA just have more customers—more people buying capsicums! That's how people are growing profits at the moment. It is just because of more people coming into the country, not because we're investing in productivity and growing wealth.

We could be talking about this. We really could. And I would love it. I would love to be able to tell my constituents and my former colleagues we're dealing with real, tough issues in parliament for the good of the nation. But, instead, we've brought on this bill about the NBN without consulting without consulting the opposition first. We're having a debate on it without consulting. We're wasting everybody's time. We're wasting the parliament's time and the public's time instead of actually focusing on issues that are hurting this country. Don't we know there are a lot of them! Gambling reform is another one. I would love to see this brought on. The coalition has come out with a policy. I think it's abhorrent. I get emails and calls from my electorate from people who are sick of having gambling ads in live sport all day every day, just like the grand final last weekend—or two weekends ago, if you were watching the AFL. Wouldn't we love to see a clear policy position on it?

We had the bipartisan Murphy report; it was bipartisan. This is something that the Liberal Party and the Labor Party agreed on—the Murphy report. We agreed on the recommendations; the changes we should make to gambling advertising were unanimously put forward. Yet those opposite are unable to bring a coherent policy—are unable to govern. This is the ultimate test, and, coming into an election within the next 12 months, it is not a good test to see them cooking up an NBN scare campaign—something we have no policy on; something we have not debated; something we have not been consulted on. We would love to be debating these real issues, and it is incredibly unfortunate that I'm now filling time on a topic that has no real substance.

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