Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a truism of politics that governments, when they're elected, bring to office a set of policies, a plan, a mandate and an agenda for anything to do with the critical issues of our time. And, yet when we look at the government so far, Australians are rightly asking: what is the plan on the economy? When we look ahead, Australians can see already—we've been looking at it for some time—inflation is on the rise and interest rates are on the rise. The challenges facing the economy are more than ever before, and so Australians rightly ask the government: What is the plan? What is the agenda? What is the mandate? What is the policy that you bring? We have a Treasurer who has come forward with a PhD in economics, who spent time working for allegedly the best Treasurer in the world and who has had time in opposition to formulate a plan. Instead, the government came forward last week with a painting—it painted a picture. It served as a data collection agency and said: 'Here are a set of facts that are very troubling about the economy coming forward.' What we would like to know, what the Australian people would like to know, what small businesses would like to know, what everyone who is struggling with power prices, with the prices of goods and services, would like to know is: what will the plan be? We know so far the government have said, 'We're going to have a summit.' That's all well and good, but the question that we really need to focus on with laser-like focus is: what is the agenda? When you get to government, you need that plan. You need to implement the plan. You need to deliver on your policies.