Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Remember at the last election the then opposition leader was running around the countryside saying everyone was going to be better off under Labor? I ask you now: are you actually better off three years on? All I've seen is crisis after crisis after crisis—a cost-of-living crisis, a housing crisis and an energy bill crisis.

When I speak to my charity groups, my food bank people are saying that the people that are arriving today looking for charity have shifted. They're not people that are unemployed. They're not the people they would traditionally be—those who have fallen on hard time. The people now showing up at food banks in my electorate include mums and dads, both working, who under this government just cannot make ends meet.

As to the housing crisis, when we left office there was no housing crisis. Two hundred and fifty thousand houses were being built each year. When you adjust the immigration policy to bring in 1.2 million in two years and you don't have anywhere for them to sleep, you create the housing crisis.

There is also the energy crisis. On my farms alone, when we were in government, my bills were around $1,200. Now they're over double that. We were told that energy was going to be free, from the wind and the sun. With 27,000 business insolvencies, Australia cannot afford any more crises. Australia cannot afford the ALP.