Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Last night we saw handed down by this hopeless Treasurer a budget for the next five weeks, not for the next five years. It is a budget for the prosperity and security of two people and their jobs—the Prime Minister and that hopeless Treasurer who is sitting over there. It is only about them. It is absolutely not about the hardworking Australians trying to get ahead, who are going backwards under this government. In 2½ years, Australians have seen the biggest collapse in their standard of living in the history of this country. We've never seen anything like this before. It is worse than any other country in the world. This hopeless Treasurer doesn't understand economics. He has never worked in the private sector—actually, I'm wrong; he worked in the private sector for six months, and he says he absolutely hated it. That's because he doesn't get it. He absolutely doesn't get it. And it's why, in his time as Treasurer, we have seen an eight per cent reduction in the standard of living of hardworking Australians. The truth is, for many Australians, it's far worse than that. If you're running a small business, it has been 18 per cent. If you're working overtime, weekends, because you can't afford to pay for your workers, it has been an 18 per cent collapse. If you are an Australian and you live in Western Sydney and you've got a mortgage, you've paid $50,000 more since this government came to power than you expected to pay just 2½ years ago. That's in after-tax income. That's what you have seen under this government.

Their answer to all of that is 70c a day over a year from now. That's their answer. That is the best this hopeless Treasurer, who simply doesn't understand economics—he's a PhD in spending; he's a PhD in excuse-making. That's the one thing that he focuses all of his time on. The best he has is 70c a day in over a year's time. The Australian people are smarter than that. They know they have been let down by this Treasurer, who is only focused on one job—his own. Actually, no—

See this speech in context