Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I don't want to show my age here, but you'll remember The Comedy Company, and there was a great character on The Comedy Company called Uncle Arthur. Remember Uncle Arthur? There he was floating around, rambling around. That speech by the Prime Minister darted back to the Gillard years. He projected himself forward. He was stuck yesterday. What was that incoherent rant from this Prime Minister who is out of luck and out of time? The reality is that this government has let down the Australian people. We saw from the Prime Minister then somebody who has lost his way, somebody who has an inability to hear what it is that Australians need.

Last night, we saw a budget which really encapsulated what we already knew about this government and what we knew about previous Labor governments, going back to the Whitlam government. This is a tax-and-spend government. This is a reckless-spend Labor government at its very worst. This Labor Party has racked up a trillion dollars of debt, and they're saying to Australians, to an average family who is $50,000 worse off under the last three years of the Albanese Labor government: 'Be grateful. Be thankful, because 70c a day is coming your way in 15 months time.' You heard the Prime Minister earlier say: 'Mission accomplished. The job is done, and Australians should be thankful for everything they've got.' Well, Prime Minister, there are a record number of homeless Australians. There are a record number of single parents. There are a record number of pensioners who are sleeping rough this very day. There are millions of Australians who have lost their businesses, have lost their livelihoods and have lost hope in this government.

This government had an opportunity in the budget to deliver support. Indeed, they had the opportunity in the last three budgets to deliver support. They didn't do that.

They've spent money on projects which have driven up the cost of electricity, and I say to the Australian people that, at this election, we will provide an opportunity for you to make a choice. The choice will be between a high-spending Labor government that will drive up the cost of electricity, that will force you out of a home and that will make our country less safe and secure on the one hand, and, on the other hand, a coalition government which has a vision for our country and which has a plan for our country to make sure that we can address cost-of-living pressures that have been created by this bad Labor government.

We have a plan to sort out the energy crisis that Labor have created. We will make sure that we put in place structural reforms that allow us to address the impact on grocery prices. Grocery costs under this government have gone up by 30 per cent. We will address that in our offering to the Australian public. We will then say that we will have a plan to reduce migration so that we can increase houses for Australians. We will restore the dream of homeownership for young Australians. We will say to Australians that we're going to put you first, because we're going to put a two-year ban in place that will stop foreign buyers from competing against young Australian homeowners bidding at an auction. We will put Australians first. We will say to the Australian public that we want to keep our country safe and secure. I want Australians to feel safer in their homes, in their communities and in their regions. I want to make sure that we reflect, in our policies, the difficulties that are the reality of today's world. And we don't know what our children and our grandchildren will face, but, if we don't prepare for it today, we will be a weaker and less safe country into the future.

This election will be about the difference that people make between a government that's going to continue to ramble along, put us into further debt, make it harder for families and crush small businesses, and a coalition that has a plan for our country to get it back on track. Last night in the budget, not only was this cruel hoax perpetrated on the Australian public in its offering of 70c a day in 15 months time, not only did they rack up a trillion dollars worth of debt, not only did they say to the Australian public that they don't have a clue what they're doing on housing—they rehashed the same housing policies from the last four budgets.

Do you know how many houses they've delivered? Out of the four budget announcements, you would have thought, if they're promising 1.2 million homes, that, maybe after three years, they would have achieved 400,000 homes. You might think that was reasonable. It's not 400,000 homes. You might think that it could be 250,000 homes. That would help young Australians get into a home. You would have thought 100,000. It's not 100,000. We could have said thank you for 100 homes—not one home! If anything sums up the hopelessness of the Albanese government, it's their housing crisis. At the same time that they've choked supply and they have increased demand for housing, they've also driven up the cost of housing. They've allowed the CFMEU to run riot across the construction sector. Why would they do that? Why would they abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission—the cop on the beat—on day one? I'll tell you why, because $11½ million was donated to the Labor Party by the CFMEU so the CFMEU and Gatto and all of the other crooks associated with the CFMEU—the bikies, the enforcers and the people breaking arms and kicking women on building sites—have all been allowed to run riot under this government, and Australians have paid the price of Labor's inaction. There has been a crisis on Labor's watch, but it's not just cost of living, it is not just in relation to health and it is not just in relation to national security but it's everything this Prime Minister touches which turns to dirt.

On the weekend, we saw the Treasurer out on Insiders, and normally the idea on the Sunday before the budget's delivered is that the Treasurer would be out there putting forward some ideas, responding to a policy that they dropped to the Sunday papers and getting their grabs up and hoping that that was going to be the package on that night's news. But without precedent, strangely enough, knowing that the Treasurer was due on Insiders at nine o'clock, the Prime Minister popped up in the prime ministerial courtyard with an impromptu press conference. Why was it held? Was it because the Prime Minister thought that the Treasurer wasn't competent enough to deliver the lines on Insiders? As the Treasurer tells us, he is the greatest communicator in this country since settlement! He has been an amazing communicator in front of the mirror regularly! But the Prime Minister is out there in this beauty contest with the Treasurer. There he is on Sunday morning trying to insert himself, claiming the $150, because behind the scenes at the moment it's not so rosy on the Labor side. They want to paint this picture going into the election. But you have the Leader of the House out there trying to win votes in Western Sydney by signing up as many people as he can to vote for him before the election because he knows that he is on the nose as much as the Prime Minister. You have the health minister who is presiding over a bulk-billing rate that is much lower than when I was health minister. When I was health minister, it was 84 per cent. It's now 77 per cent under him. So he's not going to be a contestant. Who's the dark horse here? I would say—

An opposition member: Chris Bowen!

No, it's not Chris Bowen. Let's stay in the credibility space. It is not Chris Bowen. For goodness sake, for the sake of our country, it is not Chris Bowen. That is comical. Tanya Plibersek's not going anywhere. The Prime Minister has legislated over the top of the environment minister because the environment minister won't make the decision that he is hoping she will make in relation to the North West Shelf gas extension in WA or in relation to the salmon industry in Tasmania.

This government is in disarray. Our country can't afford three more years of this. Our country cannot afford three more years of a Labor government. As every political commentator is pointing out, the Albanese government cannot be elected in a majority form after the election. It can only be returned here with the support of the dangerous, reckless, extreme Greens and with the Green teals, and that would be an absolute outrage for our economy and for our country. Twenty-nine thousand small businesses have gone broke under this government's watch, and many more will follow if we have a Labor-Greens minority government.

This government has been dictated to by the Greens over the course of the last three years. This government has responded by seeking to trash industry and jobs in Tasmania and doing the same in Western Australia because they have played to the Greens. The environment minister and the Prime Minister are desperately worried about what the Greens will do to them at the next election, and that's why they have sold out our country. That's why they have sold out parts of our community, including the Jewish community—because they have seen political advantage in putting forward policies that will see support from the Greens in their seats in inner-city Sydney and Melbourne. It has been a shameful way to act and it has been on full display for the Australian people.

Right here and right now, we contemplate a budget under this government which will make it much harder for Australians at a time when families deserve support. Last night, the Treasurer demonstrated that this Albanese government is in form with the Whitlam government and with other high-spending Labor governments, and this is a point worth making. We need to make sure that we understand that we live in uncertain times—economically uncertain with tariffs, uncertain in relation to the energy crisis that we have seen grip Europe as a result of war and uncertain in relation to inflation, which hasn't gone away in our country. A government that has spent an additional $425 billion is, ultimately, fuelling inflation.

I want a country where families can afford to pay their mortgages again. I want a country where we can afford to go to the supermarket again. I want a country where people aren't forced into rough sleeping arrangements, sleeping in the back of their cars or couch surfing as young people. I want a country again where young Australians can achieve the dream of homeownership. I want a country where we can live with peace and certainty in an uncertain world. The first charge of a prime minister of our country is to keep us safe.

This Prime Minister, along with the defence minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, has repeatedly said to the Australian people that we live in the most precarious period since the end of the Second World War in 1945. That's a big statement. In 80 years, we've spanned the Cold War and we've gone through the Vietnam War, the Middle East campaigns and uncertainty now with the prospect of war in broader Europe. We see what's happening in the Middle East. The Prime Minister of our country and the Deputy Prime Minister say we live in the most dangerous period now in 80 years.

You would have expected that, in the budget, they may have put money into defence. Instead, they've taken $80 billion out of defence. Defence industry is collapsing in this country. Defence industry saw some light of hope and opportunity when the Deputy Prime Minister became the defence minister, but I tell you, that flame has long extinguished, and there are many people across the country who are worried about our ability to protect and defend ourselves in an uncertain century.

I give this commitment to the Australian people, and I demonstrated it as defence minister and as home affairs minister: I will take the decisions that we need to take to keep our country safe. I took a decision to deport 6,000 criminals: bikies, rapists, pedophiles—people who made us less safe. This government has released criminals unnecessarily from jail, and those criminals have gone on to commit further offences. I will keep our borders secure. I will make sure that our government keeps our country safe when we don't know what the next years or decades hold for us and for our region.

We will lead a government which will stand with our allies and make sure that we do so proudly and with distinction. We will make sure that we make the investments to keep us safe and to keep Australian families with hope. We will support small businesses. We will grow manufacturing in this country again. We will have an energy system which will be the envy of the world—not one where we're now featuring blackouts and brownouts and paying three times the electricity cost as in comparable markets in the world. We will achieve cheaper, greener and more reliable power, because we have the plan to do that.

And between now and the election, we will outline that plan, and we will give a very stark choice to the Australian people to have a more definite and brighter future for their families, for their small businesses and, most importantly, for our country. And that will be the test at the upcoming election. Australians cannot afford three more years of an Albanese government which will be bad for them, bad for their families and bad for our country.

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