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

I listened carefully to the contribution by the member for Chisholm. We are electorate neighbours, and I have inherited an area that used to be part of Chisholm in Box Hill. We heard the same old trope that is wheeled out every election, a 'Mediscare' campaign, which no doubt will be a feature of this campaign. I'd like the member for Chisholm to think of somewhere I hope she visited when she was the member, which is healthAbility in Box Hill. I recently visited healthAbility, and they've had their funding cut by $500,000 under a Labor government. This is what happens when you see a Labor government manage the economy as it has in Victoria. That is where the future of the national economy will go. So you can run the 'Mediscare' campaign all you want; it's dishonest. It is dishonest. It is wrong. The only record that counts on health is the Labor government's record in Victoria, and it is about cutting essential services.

Now, I was quite worried about coming here again after our holidays, because when we do that the Treasurer gets thought bubbles in his head that have real consequences for this country, and they're quite serious. We had him come back after one thought bubble and write an essay saying he would reinvent capitalism. But what we have seen from this Treasurer, two years after he wrote that infamous thesis, is that he has not reinvented capitalism; he has repeated history's mistakes.

We're not the first capitalist economy to experiment with what happens when you blow out government spending. We are not the first. We know where that ends. Yet this Treasurer has copied that in a way that has hurt Australians and affected frontline services. Right now, families are going back to school, and the question was put to the Prime Minister, 'How much has food gone up on your watch?' He refused to answer it. Let's go to specifics. Some foods are essentials; some foods are luxuries. Let's go to the essentials. Milk is up 18 per cent in this country. Bread is up 25 per cent in this country. Eggs, a key protein source which should be cheap compared to other expensive items, like high-end steak, are up 36 per cent.

With school starting, when families come back and they still have debts from maybe a few trips away they took—maybe to an aquarium, a park or a drive—these are the sorts of bills they are facing, and they are entitled to ask: 'Am I better off than I was three years ago? Is this what the Prime Minister promised me?'

We know the answer to that. They are worse off. We take no joy in that—none. These aren't just numbers on a page; these are people we see every day. They're our neighbours, they are the people we fight for, and they're hurting. We heard from many other members that people are bursting into tears when they're doorknocking. They're writing heartbreaking letters to us. Food banks have queues through the door. This is Australia in 2025, and people are queuing for food. That's not the Australia we should be proud of.

We've seen the worst per capita recession on record—seven quarters of negative GDP. We've seen higher inflation, higher for longer, which has given us higher interest rates. We've seen business confidence collapse. On the NAB survey, 75 per cent of businesses think costs are going to continue to rise. There have been 27,000 insolvencies—even more in Victoria.

Again, I say to those members opposite and Australians around this nation: If you want to know what a second-term Albanese government looks like, look to Victoria. Their government is cut from the same cloth. The state is on its knees. It has the highest debt and is the highest spending state. It's the highest taxing and the poorest in the nation. Crime, graffiti and rubbish are out of control and businesses are fleeing or shutting down. No wonder Victoria will feature heavily in this election. Australians will say, 'If this is what you have done to my state, what will you do to my nation?'

There are only two answers from this government: pump migration, and pump spending because, by doing those two things at record levels, they get to say, 'Ta-dah, we avoided a technical recession.' Families have a recession and they've had enough of this government, and they'll soon make that known to them.

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