Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Melbourne, the Greens leader, just belled the cat: if the Greens are able to form a governance-sharing arrangement after the next election, woe beside Australia and Australians, particularly regional Australians, because it's the Greens who have policies that want to change the social fabric of this nation. Horseracing will be gone. Australia Day will be gone. All the traditions that this nation is based on will be gone if the Greens get a share of the governance arrangements.

Things are crook in Tallarook, and they're crook because of those opposite. The cost-of-living crisis is out of control. For the first 12 to 18 months we didn't hear about the cost-of-living pressures on ordinary households or small businesses. All we had was a divisive referendum that did nothing to help this nation and did nothing to help Indigenous Australians close the gap.

I've just had a meeting with Wes Lambert, the Australian Restaurant & Cafe Association CEO. There are business insolvencies that really are hurting the catering association. We in the coalition have a better plan. We are going to get this country back on track; rest assured we will. We won't be in a governance arrangement with the Greens. We would never do that; rest assured we wouldn't do that. The cost of living is out of control under Labor.