Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Hume proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The government's budget is designed for the next five weeks, not the next five years.

I call upon those honourable members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

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

It is absolutely clear that what we have just seen handed down in this place is a budget for the next five weeks, not the next five years. It is a budget for the prosperity of the Treasurer and the Prime Minister, not the prosperity of hardworking Australians. What Labor is offering in this budget is a cruel hoax, and this Treasurer is a cruel hoax and this Prime Minister is a cruel hoax because what they have said to the Australian people, as their standard of living has absolutely collapsed, is that all they need to make up for that is 70c a day, starting over a year from now. This is truly offensive to the Australian people.

I laid out before this budget flop, as I did before the other three budget flops, a very clear test for what the Australian people could reasonably expect of a good budget. At the top of that list was the restoration of their standard of living that has collapsed under Labor. The facts on this are important, because we have never seen a collapse like we've seen in the last 2½ years in Australia's standard of living. That is the goods and services that their incomes can buy. We've never seen it before.

Many of us remember the early seventies under that great government, the Whitlam government, from 1972 to 1975—they were an absolute shocker. It was so bad that by 1975, at the ripe old age of nine, I was out campaigning for the Country Party. That's how bad it got. But it wasn't as bad as this. Many of us will remember the 'recession we had to have' from the hero of the Treasurer, Paul Keating, who now hates the Treasurer because the Treasurer wants to go after unrealised capital gains. It's worse now than it was back then. We have never seen that eight per cent drop. The hard reality for an Australian family with a mortgage in Western Sydney and much of Australia right now is that they have had to find in the last three years $40,000 in after-tax income that they did not expect to have to find—$40,00—and this lot think that 70 cents a day, in over a year from now, will make up for that. Now, that's a cruel hoax.

The second thing we said was that we need to restore hope for the Australian people. We need to see a light at the end of the tunnel, a genuine light at the end of the tunnel, and we did not see that in this budget. When we get around Australia and talk to small-business people and hardworking Australians, which is what my colleagues here today do every single day when they are outside of this place, we hear time and time again that Australians are losing hope. Young Australians who are wanting to buy a house are losing hope. Slightly older Australians with a family who have bought a house, who have a mortgage and who want to be able to pay it out, are losing hope. Those 2.5 million Australians who have a small business, I tell you what, they are losing hope. Some 29,000 small businesses have gone under, a record number, under this government. We have seen incomes of small-business people absolutely smashed. When I get around my electorate, what I see time and time again is people who run cafes and pubs having to work weekends because they can't afford to pay the overtime if they are going to be able to pay themselves. This is a disastrous situation for small businesses, and it's no wonder we are seeing them go under. With an 18 per cent drop in their incomes, they are losing hope.

The third test for this budget was that they restore some integrity to the budget. Now, we have already seen three budget flops. The hope was they would re-establish those disciplines, those rules, that were put in place all those years ago by the Liberal government to make sure that there was a budget that wasn't going to leave billions and billions of dollars on the credit card for the Australian people. When we look at those three tests, Labor has absolutely failed. Our standard of living, according to the Reserve Bank now, won't get back to where it was when Labor came to power until 2031. If there was ever a lost decade, this is it. We are not getting back to where we were when we were in government until 2031. These are dark times but there is nothing in this budget that has any hope of getting us back to where we were any faster.

In terms of hope, there is nothing here. All any Australian can hope for is 70c a day. Is that it? Is that the full extent of it? In terms of budget integrity, well, this was truly a shameful budget. It was a big spending, big taxing, big Australia, big deficit budget. I will go through each of those pieces because each of them is worth expanding on. On big spending, there has been over $400 billion of additional spending since Labor has come to power. The Treasurer likes to say that he hasn't spent all the windfalls he got. Well, you know what? He is also a big taxing Treasurer because that's gone up by $400 billion as well. He has spent the lot of it and more, and that is why we see red ink as far as the eye can see, with $170 billion of deficits over the forwards. That is 6,000 bucks on the credit card of each Australian—$6,000! For an Australian family, it's more like $15,000 put on the credit card. I tell you what, Australians are indeed paying for that 70c a day they will be getting in 15 months time, which is not going to touch the sides.

What we also saw in this budget is a big Australia plan—1.8 million new Australians over the course of five years. We are a great immigrant nation. As the member for Banks said just before question time, we are a great immigrant nation. We have managed to be a great immigrant nation by getting the balance right between the number of new people coming into the country and our capacity to cope with that—the new houses, the infrastructure and the services that we need. The trouble is, when you bring in over one million people in just two years, the balance is never going to be right.

As it turns out, it's worse than that, because the housing supply under this Labor government has absolutely collapsed. The ambassador for excuses over there—the Treasurer—will blame anyone. President Xi gets a blame. Donald Trump gets a blame. Putin has had a blame. He'll blame the lot.

The dog has always eaten this bloke's homework! He was struggling today because of the $1 trillion of debt. We heard a lot about that. It turns out it's his. He'll be looking for excuses for that, but the truth of the matter is that their housing supply has absolutely collapsed. They promised 1.2 million houses, just like they promised a $275 reduction in electricity bills and just like they promised a lower cost of living. Their housing programs haven't delivered a single house—zippo. They haven't delivered a single house; meanwhile, the records keep getting broken for the number of people coming to Australia. What we saw in the forecast for this year is another increase as they get the forecast wrong yet again.

There is a better way—beating inflation; boosting growth; cutting waste; getting rid of red tape; knocking down the barriers to growth like the CFMEU, which has made the construction industry a nigh-on-impossible place to get things done; fixing the housing supply by breaking infrastructure bottlenecks; delivering that affordable, reliable energy that every Australian wants to see; and balancing housing supply with immigration. We cannot afford another three years of Labor; there is a better way.

Andrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You have to hand it to the shadow Treasurer. Really, you do have to hand it to him because he doesn't have it himself. The fact is that this bloke has a three-part plan: (1) criticise Labor; (2) pause; and (3) hope no-one asks him for point 3! He's continuing as he has this entire term—a policy-free zone. Tomorrow night, we're going to hear more spin than substance from the Leader of the Opposition—the man whose only serious policy proposal has been that Australians should spend $600 billion on a madcap nuclear fantasy that won't deliver until the 2040s.

In last night's budget, you heard Labor put forward our positive economic plan: a new tax cut for every taxpayer, more energy bill relief, growing wages, even cheaper medicines, cutting student debt, strengthening Medicare, making it easier to buy and rent a home, permanent free TAFE and a fair go for families and farmers. You'll hear much more about that from the other Labor speakers in this debate.

I want to focus my remarks today on non-compete clauses, which are an important part of Labor's competition reforms. The fact is, if you had a competition agenda, then you would be pretty worried about something called a non-compete clause. The clue is in the name. These are affecting real people across Australia. Let me start with a couple of stories.

Charlotte, a 17-year-old, landed her first casual job as a dance teacher. She was forced to quit after experiencing harassment. Months later, she took a job at a different dance studio and immediately received a warning letter from her former employer. It said she'd breached a restraint of trade clause to not work or even volunteer for a competing business for 36 months within a 15-kilometre exclusion zone. Her former employer went so far as to contact the new dance studio.

Or take Mia, a disability support worker who is registered for a National Disability Insurance Scheme provider. Mia was offered a new contract with a lower hourly rate that she'd been on. So she went out on her own as an independent and joined a rival registered provider. Without cajoling, several former clients decided to transfer their care plans over. She then received a letter from her former employer saying she'd breached restraint of trade clauses.

Or there's Patrick, a 21-year-old boilermaker who decided that he would take up a new opportunity working not for a competitor but in-house for a former client. He was branded a troublemaker and sent a letter from his former employer saying he breached his post-employment obligations.

These clauses are spreading across the economy. Once was the time when people would say non-compete clauses only applied to highly paid executives, who were required to take a period of gardening leave. Now it's just about the case that gardeners are being hit by non-compete clauses.

The case against non-competes is in several parts, and I want to take the House through those. First of all, we know that job mobility is important to the whole economy. As people will know from their own careers, some of the biggest wage gains you get come when you switch jobs. Switching jobs is a bit like the run rate in cricket; it is a measure of the health for how the economy is going. Worryingly, it declined under the former government. We know from work by the e61 think tank that workers can increase their wages by thousands of dollars by shifting to a better job. It's a productivity boost too, as workers find a job that's a better match for their talent. Non-compete clauses put sand in the gears of job mobility, which is so critical to a productive and efficient economy.

Second, non-compete clauses are more widespread than we'd thought. When I began talking about this several years ago, some people said, 'We've seen these surveys out of the US that say that 18 per cent of American workers are subject to a non-compete, but that's an American thing.' Then we surveyed Australia with the help of e61 and Australian Bureau of Statistics, and the e61 survey came back showing that 22 per cent of Australian workers were subject to a non-compete—a higher share than in the United States. Non-compete clauses are widespread through the economy.

Non-compete clauses aren't just applying to high-wage workers. They're not just applying to barristers but to baristas. They're not just applying to traders; they're applying to waiters. They're not just applying to auditors; they're applying to janitors. They're not just applying to coders; they're applying to cabbies. They're not just applying to surgeons but to servers. They're not just applying to accountants but to aged-care workers. Non-competes aren't just applying to those folks whose jobs involve guarding trade secrets but also to the bloke whose job is to guard the car park. They're not just applying in the boardroom; they're applying in the mailroom too.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics survey found that most businesses that apply non-compete clauses do so to 75 per cent of their employees or more, and US research found that when confronted with a non-compete clause only a tenth of prospective workers choose to negotiate. Who wants to negotiate a non-compete when you're just starting off your employment relationship? We know too that non-compete clauses can have a chilling effect on workers, impacting labour mobility. These clauses can be complex negotiate out of and complex to handle, and they can often come in the form of cascading causes. One contract which went to court said that the worker was banned from working for a competing employer for 15 months or, if that was, invalid for 13 months or, if that was invalid, for 12 months. And 'competing employers' meant those employers in all of Australia or, if that was invalid, in the state or, if that was invalid, in the metro area. So who's to know what's the true non-compete clause?

US research on this has found that even in places where non-competes have been unenforceable—like California, where they've been unenforceable since the 1870s—non-compete clauses can still have a chilling effect on worker mobility. It's no great surprise when you consider the fact that going to court can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. People don't litigate their non-competes; they simply sit out, costing the economy and costing workers.

Businesses have better options to protect their interests.

In last night's budget, the Treasurer made clear that we're cracking down on non-compete clauses for those earning under the high-earner threshold of $175,000, but we're not changing the rules on non-disclosure clauses. Employers still have intellectual property protections. There's a statutory protection under section 183 of the Corporations Act which prevents any director, other officer or employee of the corporation from improperly using information obtained in that position for their benefit, the benefit of someone else or the detriment of the corporation. Employers who pay above the $175,000 threshold wouldn't be affected in the first instance by our reforms. And non-competes for the sale of a business aren't affected. We also know that there will still be an ability to constrain workers from working for another employer at the same time—these so-called concurrent non-competes.

There are better options for employers. Indeed, our approach will provide simplicity to employers and employees. It's a red tape reduction mechanism, removing an approach which has been confusing and has led to litigation and replacing it with one which provides simplicity and precision.

No-poach agreements between businesses could also be harmful, and in last night's budget the Treasurer made clear that we're looking at arrangements such as those that franchise chains McDonald's, Domino's and Bakers Delight have that prevent a worker from moving from one franchise outlet to another. I've heard stories of workers who want to move to a McDonald's closer to home, but they've been told they cannot do so because of the so-called no-poach clauses. The employee isn't even a party to these clauses, but they're hurting worker mobility.

Finally, Australia has been well-placed to learn from other countries. Spain, Finland, the UK, the US and Austria are among other countries dealing with non-competes. We put out a Treasury issues paper last year and garnered feedback on that. We've had significant and valuable research from the e61 Institute; the Grattan Institute; the Productivity Commission; and the competition taskforce, ably headed by Jason McDonald and Marcus Bezzi.

I want to acknowledge the work of Dan Andrews, Jack Buckley, Ewan Rankin, Bjorn Jarvis and Iain Ross in working through the issues behind non-competes. Labor wants to unleash ambition, to boost wages, to increase productivity and to put downward pressure on prices. Our non-compete reform will do just that.

Melissa McIntosh (Lindsay, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Energy Affordability) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was Prime Minister John Howard who said Australia is a country of optimism and fairness and resilience. It's really hard, though, for Australians to be optimistic right now. It's certainly not fair the approaches the Albanese Labor government is putting on the Australian people. Yet, everyone across this country remains so resilient, so strong, because that's the foundation of our country. But they shouldn't have to be. Labor's tax cuts, even though they're patting themselves on the back and saying, 'We're wonderful, and Australians should be so grateful', don't touch the surface of the cost-of-living crisis that they've gotten this country into. Today, I looked up online what 70c could buy you at our major supermarkets. It cannot even buy you one banana. Actually, one of the supermarkets had apples on special, so it could buy you an apple—

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

An asparagus spear.

Melissa McIntosh (Lindsay, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Energy Affordability) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

or one asparagus spear. What a joke! But it's absolutely not a joke; it's this government's absurd faux fix for the cost-of-living crisis that the Albanese government itself created. In fact, this five-week budget has been seen as a joke right across this country, a sad joke. The nation wants a plan for our next five years, not just until the May election. Not only are groceries up; a substantial number of other items are as well—like our mortgages, rent, petrol. Seventy cents a day will not make a dent in the empty pockets of so many everyday Australians.

One thousand and three hundred dollars: that's a lot of money for so many Western Sydney families, yet this is what they're now paying for their energy bills over and above what Labor promised. Remember that $275 pledge to drop household energy bills by this year made on 97 occasions? I know people across Western Sydney in my electorate of Lindsay have not forgotten that huge broken promise. I know the McMahon community from Santa Clara to Fairfield haven't forgotten. They're getting smashed with higher household energy bills, and they're not happy with their local member.

We need to get the country on a sensible direction with energy policy. We need 24/7 baseload power with nuclear and more gas. Renewables are only killing our country's small businesses and our Western Sydney manufacturers. We've seen more than 29,000 small businesses hit the wall due to this government's lack of understanding and care of small businesses in this country. Instead of backing small businesses, the Labor government has boosted the federal public servant count by 41,000. It's extraordinary. Green Valley in Werriwa is one of the top places in the country for business consultancy, but where is the local member for Werriwa on this topic? Is she advocating that small business get a permanent instant asset write-off with the threshold lifting to $30,000? Our Liberal candidate in Werriwa, Sam Kayal, is. He's a fighter for Green Valley, Austral and Prestons and right across Werriwa. He's an accountant and small-business owner that gets small business.

We will ensure $5 billion of funding goes towards local roads, sewerage and other works to get homes built across Werriwa and right across Western Sydney and our whole country, because housing in this country is a major part of the cost-of-living crisis and we need to boost supply. Rattan Virk and Mike Creed, our candidates for Macquarie and Greenway in the north-west, understand the housing pressures due to population growth. We need better infrastructure. Letting Australians use their super will ensure families in Western Sydney can get ahead and get onto the next phase of their lives.

I'm glad the health minister is here, because another cost-of-living issue is cost of health care. Mental ill health is a challenge many families are facing in this cost-of-living crisis, particularly young people and mums and dads trying to pay for their kids' mental health appointments. This is why our wonderful Liberal candidate for Parramatta, Katie Mullens, has fought so hard for headspace in Parramatta. The coalition will bring back better access for psychology sessions. It is great that the health minister is here, because he was in charge of health when the Labor government cut the 20 sessions back to 10. We want to double the Medicare psychology sessions back up to the 20 that Australians deserve. This will provide so much relief for working families, young people and pensioners who need this support. Our Western Sydney team understand the pressures facing our region, from the Blue Mountains to Parramatta and the Hawksbury to Camden. Whether it's the member for Hume, Hughes, Banks or Mitchell or me as the member for Lindsay, our team knows that only a Dutton led coalition government will get Western Sydney back on track.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This responsible budget is about building a better and fairer future for Australia. In this budget there are more tax cuts for every taxpayer. That's 14 million of them around the country. There's more energy bill relief for every household and for small business. There's more bulk-billing, which will help Australians to see a GP for free. We have more cuts for the 23,000 people in my electorate who have HECS debts and we have historic funding for schools like Bremer State High School and Ipswich State High School in the electorate of Blair. We have more help to get Australians in a home of their own. That will help in suburbs like Spring Mountain and Ripley Valley in the city of Ipswich in my electorate.

But then, of course, we have those opposite. They are really keen on this MPI, because there are so few of them! I count three of them over there. That's how important this MPI is. What we know today from the Liberals and National Party about how they believe the economy should work is simply diametrically opposed to their patron and spiritual leader, Robert Menzies. These two parties, the Liberals and Nationals, are blocking help for small business. Today 1.5 million small businesses, by the way, could have got the help that they need, because they are actually taxpayers. They are sole traders. They could have got tax cuts today, two tranches of them, but the opposition opposed it today. When they were in government, they never saw a budget where they didn't deliver a deficit and increased debt. The biggest-taxing governments in the history of the Commonwealth of Australia were Liberal and National party governments—Howard's and, of course, Morrison's. This is what they do. They claimed that were going to deliver a surplus in their first year and every year thereafter.

What have we done? We've delivered two surpluses. We've delivered historic funding for Medicare. We have lifted the wages of Australia's lowest-paid workers. The lowers-paid workers in this country will get $143 more a week as a result of the work that we have done in supporting minimum wage rises and investing in aged care and child care by supporting those industries and getting wages up. Those opposite never saw a wage rise they didn't want to oppose. The never once supported a minimum wage rise. But that's what the Liberal and National parties do—they do not support workers or tax cuts. They opposed energy bill relief. Who can forget what they did in 2022, in opposing that. Today they say, 'We won't stand in the way,' but they don't actually support it. They don't actually support energy bill relief for families in the country.

What we're doing is making sure that we're building, not cutting. Those opposite would cut the NEMA workers who helped us in South-East Queensland in the cyclones and floods—the public servants there on the frontline helping people get $1,000 and $400 for their kids, in the Australian government disaster recovery payment. They're the frontline workers from Services Australia that are helping people in South-East Queensland in the aftermath of Cyclone Alfred and the veterans assessors in the Department of Veterans' Affairs. Those opposite let the veterans entitlements claims fly out to 43,000—they were out of date. They could not actually look at the claims for months and months. We had to put on 500 extra public servants to deal with the claims. During question time today the Minister for Veterans' Affairs articulated what we've done in this space.

The Liberal and National parties would cut those public savants. They all don't live, by the way, here in Canberra. We like the member for Fenner, but they don't all live here in Canberra. They live in Toowoomba, Ipswich, Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville and Cairns. They're the people—in regional Queensland and around the country—serving the public. But there are 40,000 on the chopping block if those opposite get the chance. I say to the public servants around the country who have been helping us in the aftermath of cyclones, bushfires and floods that we've got your back and we will support you. The Liberal and National parties will cut your jobs. As they look to their spiritual guiders in America, they will cut your jobs.

What will we do? We'll Invest in education. We'll cut your HECS debt. We will provide support for child care. We will reduce the childcare costs for families. We will cut taxes. We will bring down inflation, as we have been doing, and we'll make wages rise, improve productivity and improve economic growth in the country. We'll build a fairer society and a more responsible society. We'll back small business. Those opposite cannot even see a small business that they would support today. There are 1.5 million small businesses today that did not get the tax cut they deserved.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Going through the budget papers, there are some things that jump off the page and concern you. I am looking through 'Liabilities and assets included in net debt', and this year it's $935 billion. Next year we're over $1 trillion. Then we're up to basically $1.1 trillion, and then we start heading towards $1.2 trillion. By 2029, we're up to $1.239 trillion in gross debt. This is a huge problem, and any person who has run a business will tell you that an escalating debt like that comes with massive servicing costs. Running through our servicing costs, I've noted that we're going from $25 billion and then jump up next year to $29½ billion. Then in the year after that it will be over $34 billion. We're ending up with close to $43 billion in the financial year ending 30 June 2029.

At the moment, we spend roughly $50 billion on defence. We are now basically taking the money that we should be using to defend our nation and using it instead to service our debt. We've done this to ourselves. About 50 per cent of your placements, of what are called non-resident holdings of Australian government securities, are foreign.

So we've got ourselves into a real pickle here, and there is nothing in these budget papers that talk to how on earth we pay this off. You can't just blindly go. I've been here 20 years now. I've never seen a forward projection work yet, to be quite frank—not usually within a bull's roar of it—but you can talk about your debt here and now. If you go to AOFM, if ever you are curious, you'll see 'Australian government securities outstanding'. It's on the front as you go in there. To try to manufacture some process of strengthening our balance sheet in such a form as to have a hope of just holding the debt where it is, we'd have to see in these budget papers some substantive, prudent investment in proper assets—not chattels, but proper assets that provide a determined return. I'll give you the names of some of those assets that we have tried in the past to get going but that have stalled. I'm going to hope that they've not stopped but have stalled.

The Inland Rail is one such asset. No matter where you go in the world, intermodal fast-track freight rail makes your economy stronger. It builds your economy's base. But this one's just stalled. It's gone nowhere.

You need water infrastructure. You need dams. Dams are the essence—the substance—of what generates wealth. If you don't believe that, find me a country that goes without water—how are they going? Go down to any river system and see what happens if they can't use water. It just withers. We don't have any vision of dams; we don't have any visions of rail.

In this nation, we've still only got two sealed roads from east to west—one through Camooweal and one across the Nullarbor. I hate to point it out to you, but have a look at them on a map, and you'll notice that they're very close to the coast. If we have a strategic issue that comes into play, we're not going to have much luck with roads on the coast, and—might I remind people—the Chinese were doing live-fire exercises off Sydney—

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't know why you laugh at that. Why do you laugh at that?

Sam Rae (Hawke, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

An invasion?

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll take that interjection. What do you think they were doing there with their live-fire exercises?

Sam Rae (Hawke, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is ridiculous fearmongering!

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Do you think they were lost? Do you think they were worried about the Antarcticans coming up and discovering our underbelly? What do you think they were doing off Sydney doing live-fire exercises?

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Hawke!

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's why we are in trouble. That exact interjection is why this nation is in trouble. It is exactly that process that underlies the incapacity of the Labor government to take the defence of this nation seriously.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Hawke!

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is why, when you look at this, they blow the budget, they hock us up to the eyeballs in debt, they build nothing to service it and then, when you talk about the defence of the nation, the honourable members opposite start laughing. It's all a joke, isn't it?

Sally Sitou (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate the contribution from the member for New England. I know that he, in his former life, was an accountant. That's why we had the long explanation about assets, dollars and making the books balance. My question to the member for New England, then, is: how would you explain—how would you advise—a party that had a $600 billion black hole in their books? What advice would you be giving to your coalition members about how you would be filling that black hole? What sort of asset would you be investing in? Because, to me, that sounds like a dud asset.

We all know why we are standing here to debate this MPI proposed by the shadow Treasurer. It's because he's running scared. He refuses to debate the Treasurer. Why is he refusing to debate the Treasurer? It's because he has no policies to debate the Treasurer with.

But there was one debate that he agreed to participate in, and that was with the member for Parramatta, my colleague here. I guess that made sense to him. The shadow Treasurer and the member for Parramatta, Rhodes scholar and Rhodes scholar—he thought he had an even match. Unfortunately, he was wrong, because the member for Parramatta, by all accounts, cleaned up in that debate. So he's now said no to all debates, and I can understand, because there is no long-term vision in their plan.

We do have a vision—a long-term vision—and I'll take the premise of this MPI. Let's not take it over five years; let's take it over the lifetime of a child. I'm going to talk you through what the four budgets that we've had mean for an eight-year-old child. That's the age of my son. Let me talk you through what we are going to be doing not just for the next five years but for the remainder of his life. This eight-year-old child is most likely going to attend a public school. In this budget the Labor government will lift our contribution for public schools from 20 to 25 per cent of the schooling resource standard by 2034 in New South Wales so that public schools will be fully funded—something that students in New South Wales have been waiting more than a decade for. That's $41 billion of investment into our public schools in New South Wales so students will get smaller class sizes, better learning resources and additional support for teachers. So that means that that eight-year-old child will get high-quality education, and, as he grows up and decides whether he's going to go to TAFE or university, we've got plans to help there. We're making free TAFE permanent and introducing 100,000 more places, ensuring that young people can pursue further education without financial barriers. This is good for the child because they get the skills for a lifelong career, and it's good for the country because we can get workers into areas where we've got skills shortages. If he chooses to go into university, next year we are going to wipe 20 per cent off HECS debt because university is an investment, and it shouldn't be a burden.

This child's family will benefit from Labor's tax cuts because every taxpayer will receive a new tax cut of up to $800 over the next two financial years. Because of successive tax cuts by the Labor government, the average New South Wales taxpayer will receive around $2,500 in tax cuts by 2027-28. This means more money for school supplies, extracurricular activities and family expenses. And each time we've wanted to give all Australians a tax cut, those opposite have opposed it.

Good health care is also essential for that child's future, and we are making health care more affordable. We've tripled the bulk-billing incentive for concession cardholders and children who need to see a GP, and the Medicare data shows that this investment is restoring bulk-billing for more than 11 million patients who this change covers. More than nine in 10 GP visits are now bulk-billed for those patients.

So the alternative between this side of the House and that side of the House is clear for that eight-year-old child. The shadow Treasurer has no policies and no vision, and it's no wonder he can't debate the Treasurer.

Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, what does this tricky Labor government have to say to struggling Australians who are $50,000 worse off under their leadership? What cost-of-living relief do they have for them? Well, hang in there. In 462 days, Labor will give you 70 cents a day. That's the generosity—the cruel hoax—of Labor's so-called cost-of-living relief for those struggling today under Labor's homegrown inflation crisis. If Labor were a prison warden, that would be a crumb flicked to the inmates for their daily meal. It gets worse. Labor rattle the bars as they strut to the election thinking they are so generous—so brilliant. But the Australian people, particularly regional Australians, are the inmates trapped after three years of 'hard Labor' in the Prime Minister's homegrown cost-of-living crisis and unable to escape. Those opposite have locked up aspirational Australians, taken away their housing affordability and locked up their food affordability as well. Australians' wages no longer buy what they once did at the supermarket.

Leaving aside for one moment this government's inaction on the major supermarkets and price gouging, let's look at the food price hikes under Labor. Bread is up over 20 per cent, cheese is up 18 per cent, milk is up 17 per cent and breakfast cereal is up 15 per cent. Add to that cost-of-living pressures like mortgage repayments, which are up 41 per cent; gas prices, which are up 32 per cent; and rents, which are up 17 per cent. Electricity bills are up by $1,300, not down by $275 like Labor promised 97 times before the last election. They want you to forget that, and here they are again with the parlour tricks, extending energy bill relief of $75 for two more quarters. Wow!

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That'll do it.

Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes. So let's do the math—40c per day in energy bill relief until 31 December. Then wait for six months—no cost-of-living relief then. But then, on 1 July 2026, you get—wait for it—70c a day.

But it gets worse. Under Labor, income taxes are up over 25 per cent. As this engorged government feasts on your income, using it to spend on largesse that exacerbates the cost-of-living crisis, Labor tosses Australians a daily morsel of their tax back. This is a government swimming in income tax revenue, not to mention mineral resources revenue. The jackpot machine of the Australian success story is spitting out chips, but Labor is letting it all go down the drain of debt, deficit and bloated public spending. Yet they come along here, gagging MPs, ramming through a debate today to legislate a 70c-a-day tax cut beginning in 462 days time. Excuse me, and excuse the Australian public, and excuse the press gallery for being a little cynical. This is a cynical government, a tricky government with a tricky budget, and here they are saying, 'Have we got a clever trick for you!' The Australian public have worked this government out. Those opposite know it. Mallee residents, their fellow regional Australians and all Australians have become conditioned to bill shock. They're not happy about it at all, but they have become used to the higher cost of electricity under those opposite. The independent costing came in last year about the coalition's energy plans, which cost 44 per cent less than Labor's reckless renewables rollout, a rollout that is railroading my electorate of Mallee. Those opposite know they've lost the crowd—the everyday Australians going without a meal, putting groceries back on the shelf because they can't afford them, the pensioners not running their air-conditioners in stifling heat in Mallee, because they live in fear of the next power bill. Australians need a coalition government that respects them, respects their hard-earned income and will get Australia back on track.

Sam Rae (Hawke, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government, the Albanese Labor government, is using this time, this week, this sitting week, as an important period. We've delivered a budget, which the Treasurer did, and we've come in today and sought to immediately legislate the tax cuts. I'll come back to the tax cuts in a second. We are using this week to continue to work hard for the Australian people. We know we've got an election on the horizon and there's a lot of electioneering going on, particularly on the other side of the chamber, but we are using this week as we've used the entire period of government to relentlessly focus and deliver for the Australian people. It's quite fun, nevertheless, to watch those opposite line up and audition at the despatch box for the job of shadow Treasurer. I think the member for Hume is probably sitting in his office watching one colleague after another come to the despatch box, and I think he can feel the pressure. He's probably loosening the necktie a little bit. I think he can feel the pressure. Let's be very frank here about where the Australian economy is up to. Inflation's down. Incomes are on the rise. Finally, incomes are on the rise.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For the last five-quarters.

Sam Rae (Hawke, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For the last five-quarters, indeed. Unemployment is very, very low—historically low. Interest rates, which have been a burden on Australian households, are coming down. And now, on top of that, we are seeing that growth in our economy is starting to rebound. We've got to think about where we were just three years ago. I know the member for Casey has joined us because he does enjoy reflecting on where things were three years ago with me. The Liberal government, the Scott Morrison Liberal government, left the Australian people with $1 trillion of Liberal debt on the books—$1 trillion of Liberal debt. They had nothing to show for it. There was no economic dividend from their ridiculous pre-COVID and post-COVID expenditure. We all remember the wastage that went on, the colour-coded spreadsheets and the rorts. They left Australians with $1 trillion of debt on the books and nothing to show for it. They come here pretending or hoping that the Australian people will have forgotten that ridiculous mismanagement of the Australian economy and our budgetary circumstances. They left us with inflation peaking under the former Liberal government at 6.1 per cent. We're now back within the two to three per cent band. And, of course, the interest rates began rising under that government.

Labor inherited a budget and an economy from the Morrison Liberal government that had seriously deteriorated. When you think again about the turnaround—inflation down, income up, unemployment being very low, interest rates coming down and growth starting to rebound—those three short years have been used very productively. We've now legislated, or at least moved through this House, the top-up tax cuts to the very substantive tax cuts that the Prime Minister made the important call on last year to ensure that every Australian taxpayer got a tax cut. That's 73,000 taxpayers in my electorate.

When we talk about the long term, as this MPI seeks to do, I think we need to focus on the fact that this combined package means that the average worker in my electorate or perhaps the member for Reid's electorate would be paying $30,000 less in tax in 2035-36. When we talk about the long term, we're talking about saving families with an average worker $30,000 a year in tax. I know that, when you break it down to what it's worth on a minute-by-minute basis, the Liberal Party opposite get a cheap sound bite out of that, but this is substantive money. This is the kind of saving that will have an impact on people in my community and it is the kind of impact the people in our communities so desperately need.

Let me remind you again: inflation is down, incomes are strengthening, unemployment is very low, interest rates are coming down and now growth is starting to rebound. People have been doing it very tough in our communities over the last number of years. Again, that's what happens when the Liberals leave us with $1 trillion dollars of debt, leave us with inflation spiking above six per cent and leave us with inflation rising. They come to the dispatch box. They want the confidence of the Australian people to manage our economy and budget; they do not have it.

Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's always great to follow the member for Hawke. It gives me an opportunity to fact-check some of the claims that he makes. Let's start with the first one, that inflation peaked under the former coalition government. He might want to check the ABS data. It would show that it actually peaked at 7.8 per cent in the December 2022 quarter. Last time I checked, the Albanese Labor government was in power in December 2022. Maybe fact-check that comment, Member for Hawke.

He also said that they inherited $1 trillion of debt. The problem with that is there are budget papers and—I've said this to you before, so you know this—$517 billion was the actual number in the budget papers. Thirty-one per cent of that was under the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government, which was a great success for the Australian people! When we're talking about auditions, the member for Parramatta wouldn't get those facts wrong. He would make sure that those numbers were right, because he's ready to go if the Treasurer makes those mistakes.

This Treasurer and this Prime Minister have delivered a budget in their true tradition. It is classic spin that sounds impressive with their cost-of-living plan—it's a headline—but it delivers nothing for the Australian people. It delivers 70c a day in 15 months. Congratulations to all those community members in Hawke that are struggling. You'll get 70c back in 15 months time. That'll help with the grocery bills this week. That'll help with the petrol when you have to fill up the car this week—70c a day in 15 months.

When the Treasurer and those opposite continue the political spin about how great the Australian people have it, how we've never had it better and everything they're doing, they like to give these big numbers about tax cuts and what they've supposedly done, but they always leave one number out. They never put one number into their calculations. They don't include the low- and middle-income offset that they let lapse under their watch—the $1,500 that the Australian people received in one go, in one hit, when they put in their tax return. Many people in my community and many people across the country were outraged when they didn't get that $1,500 they were expecting, because they'd received it in the previous years. We saw that this Prime Minister had the opportunity and had the ability to make sure that $1,500 in one hit made a tangible difference—a policy that was a coalition policy that the former government implemented. They could have kept that policy going, because they backflipped on the stage 3 tax cuts. 'My word is my bond'—apparently not!

They were prepared to backflip on stage 3, but they weren't prepared to backflip on the $1,500 in direct benefits to the Australian people. That says everything you want to know about this Prime Minister and this Treasurer. They've spent so long in this place that they think that spin and political headlines will make a difference for the Australian people, but they won't, because every Australian is struggling.

Discovery Church in my community—an amazing organisation that does a lot through their foodbank—had a 400 per cent increase in demand last year. That increase came from what they dubbed 'the working poor'—those that have jobs, even two jobs, and with three or four in their family needing food support. But we get told by this Prime Minister, by this Treasurer and by those opposite that we've never had it better and that the plan is working. If the Treasurer's plan worked for the last three years, I would hate to see failure, because the community members in Casey that are having to go to Discovery Church to get free food to feed their family and the people that are struggling to pay bills don't feel a soft landing. They're not feeling better today than there did three years ago when this Prime Minister promised that he could solve the cost-of-living crisis. We're not going to stand here and be lectured by those opposite who tell us that we've never had it better, that the plan is working and that we should be so lucky to have the Treasurer in control of the Treasury, making these decisions. These decisions are failing.

If he spent some time talking to people in the community, he would stop the hubris. He would stop bragging about how successful he has been, lining himself up to challenge the Prime Minister after the election, and focus on structural changes to help the Australian people in this cost-of-living crisis, because he's failed time and time again. (Time expired)

Carina Garland (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the three years that we've been in government and that we've had the privilege of serving the Australian people in this place, we've taken really seriously the challenges that people have faced. It is really disappointing that on every occasion, including today when those opposite were given the chance to back Australians and to do something meaningful about the cost-of-living pressures people find themselves under, they have voted against those measures. I find that really disappointing. I wish that we would see more empathy, ambition and action from those opposite, rather than the aggressive political games we continually see from them in this chamber.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this MPI and to highlight the ways in which we are acting with empathy, ambition and action for our communities through the investments that we're making across the country, including in my own state and community, to make people's lives easier and better. The budget that was delivered last night by the Treasurer, the fourth budget, is a budget squarely focused on helping people with cost of living and building Australia's future so we have a more prosperous future. Our government is providing relief whilst also investing in the future, and this is happening at the same time that we are delivering the biggest improvement to the bottom line in a single parliamentary term. We are delivering smaller deficits and much lower debt compared to what we inherited three years ago, and that that's happening is good for future generations of Australians too.

We have a really clear choice at this election. We can continue to keep building and have an ambition and vision for this country, or we can go backwards with the Leader of the Opposition, who we know is going to cut everything, but we don't know exactly what those secret cuts will be yet. So we have a choice. We can build, which is what those of us on this side of the House want to do, or we will see terrible, destructive cuts, which is what those on the opposite side of the chamber seek to do. The Leader of the Opposition will make people worse off by cutting the things ordinary Australians need. He's done it before; he'll do it again. To quote Maya Angelou, which is perhaps where the opposition leader got his inspiration from when he said the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour, 'When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.' The Leader of the Opposition has absolutely shown us who he is. He will cut Medicare. He will cut education spending. He will make people's lives harder and worse.

Our responsible budget, on the other hand, helps Australians now and builds Australia's future by delivering cost-of-living relief, another tax cut—a top-up tax cut—for every Australian taxpayer, $150 of energy bill relief for every household and cheaper medicines, and, of course, we're backing higher wages. Ours is not a government that has wage suppression at the heart of our economic policy, because that is not what the Australian Labor Party would ever do. Only Labor is committed to delivering cost-of-living relief. Again, we have the proof of that in the voting record of those opposite, including this morning. We're strengthening Medicare with more bulk-billing, urgent care clinics and a record investment in women's health. I will use this opportunity to remind everyone that March is Endometriosis Awareness Month, hence my yellow pin, and our government is investing strongly in women's health, including in endo and pelvic pain clinics. We are growing wages, including a well-deserved wage increase for aged-care nurses, and we are stopping unfair non-compete clauses that are holding back Australian workers from switching to better, higher-paying jobs.

I'm really pleased to see that Victoria will benefit from our fourth budget in particular ways. We learned last night that every taxpayer will receive a top-up tax cut. Combined with our first round of tax cuts, the average benefit for Victorian taxpayers will be $2,530 in 2027-28. It's also good to see that each of the 2.5 million households in Victoria will get an additional $150 to help with their energy bills. This relief will also extend to 223,000 eligible small businesses. There are so many other things that we are delivering to provide cost-of-living relief for different generations for different cohorts. As always, I'm proud to be a part of an Albanese Labor government.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The discussion has concluded.