David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

Everyone remembers the words of the Prime Minister on election night—'No-one held back, no-one left behind.' But fast forward 1,000 days and every Australian is being held back and everyone is being left behind. Our standard of living has reduced by eight per cent since the Anthony Albanese government was elected 1,000 days ago. Every Australian is worse off because of the ideology of this Labor government in not addressing the fundamentals of what has kept inflation and interest rates higher than what they need to be.

It's about getting the fundamentals right about proper energy policy, not living in an ideology of an all-renewables approach that no country of the industrial scale and size of Australia has gone through or is going down, because you cannot do it and keep your industrial base going. That will cost jobs and that has cost jobs in this country. It has torn away at the very fabric of what's underpinning our economy. It has driven people's energy bills up. That is about the fact that they have taken away supply and they have not replaced it. When you reduce supply, prices go up. That is what has happened under this ideology. It has seen premiers pleading with their citizens to turn off their dishwashers so that they can keep the grid going. That's how desperate we are. In a country as resource-rich as Australia, that's the path that we have gone down.

That has put inflationary pressure on us and kept interest rates higher. While the rest of the world's interest rates are coming down, Australia's are sticking there. We hope that on Tuesday the RBA reduces interest rates by 25 points. That's important. Appreciate this number: since Anthony Albanese and the Labor government were elected, the average mortgage in Australia has gone up by $50,000. I hope that that 25 points is granted by the RBA governor. That will take $1,875 off that bill. That's a start, but there's a long way to go.

That's because this government hasn't faced up to the fundamentals of what needs to be fixed and what's keeping interest rates higher longer. They've tried to paper over it with $6.5 billion worth of subsidies to keep electricity bills down, after promising a $275 reduction at the last election only to see it go up by thousands. Discretionary spending is dropping but fixed costs continue to go up. If you don't fix your electricity bill then you don't fix your grocery bill, because food processors are paying two or sometimes three times more than what they were before Anthony Albanese came to power. That means people are paying more at the check-out.

We have a government that's not even prepared to stand up to the supermarkets when there is clear evidence that they've been gouging Australians. We, in this parliament, including the Prime Minister, voted for divestiture powers in 2019 to stand up to the big CEOs of energy companies. But, when there are Australians that will not eat dinner tonight, who cannot afford to eat dinner, why wouldn't we come into this place and send a very strong message and hold the supermarkets to account to make sure there is fairness and transparency from the farm gate to the plate? 'Where are the priorities when there are Australians who will not eat tonight?' I ask those opposite. They all have their heads down.

You have to fix your fundamentals. This is about making sure in the short term you can get gas into the grid quickly. That brings energy bills down quickly. In the long term, it's underpinning our energy grid with nuclear energy and then taking on and bringing down the food bill.

It's also about making sure we have some common sense about building some homes. We've gone to a seven-star construction code, adding $50,000 to $60,000 to the construction of a new home. It's absolute madness. We will pause that and we will actually go line by line to try and reduce those costs to give some hope. To give some hope to young people that they'll finally own a home, we're going to bring in people who might build them—not the martial arts instructors and dog groomers that this mob have prioritised, but some plumbers, electricians and roofers. We're going to ban foreigners from competing with Australians at auctions on a Saturday. We're going to give Australians the first chance at buying a home. We're going to say to them that they're the most important people in this country and should have a roof over their heads. We're going to give the states some time to help with supply.

That's the common-sense solution that a coalition government will bring. They're the solutions that will fix the fundamentals and won't keep spending the Australian taxpayers' money. To solve the nation's problems, you need common sense, courage and strength in leadership. Anthony Albanese and the Labor government have shown nothing but ideology, unable to meet the practical reality of what's been bled out of Australians' wallets for the last three years. Ask yourself if you are better off after three years of Anthony Albanese.

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