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

Last night we saw handed down by this hopeless Treasurer a budget for the next five weeks, not for the next five years. It is a budget for the prosperity and security of two people and their jobs—the Prime Minister and that hopeless Treasurer who is sitting over there. It is only about them. It is absolutely not about the hardworking Australians trying to get ahead, who are going backwards under this government. In 2½ years, Australians have seen the biggest collapse in their standard of living in the history of this country. We've never seen anything like this before. It is worse than any other country in the world. This hopeless Treasurer doesn't understand economics. He has never worked in the private sector—actually, I'm wrong; he worked in the private sector for six months, and he says he absolutely hated it. That's because he doesn't get it. He absolutely doesn't get it. And it's why, in his time as Treasurer, we have seen an eight per cent reduction in the standard of living of hardworking Australians. The truth is, for many Australians, it's far worse than that. If you're running a small business, it has been 18 per cent. If you're working overtime, weekends, because you can't afford to pay for your workers, it has been an 18 per cent collapse. If you are an Australian and you live in Western Sydney and you've got a mortgage, you've paid $50,000 more since this government came to power than you expected to pay just 2½ years ago. That's in after-tax income. That's what you have seen under this government.

Their answer to all of that is 70c a day over a year from now. That's their answer. That is the best this hopeless Treasurer, who simply doesn't understand economics—he's a PhD in spending; he's a PhD in excuse-making. That's the one thing that he focuses all of his time on. The best he has is 70c a day in over a year's time. The Australian people are smarter than that. They know they have been let down by this Treasurer, who is only focused on one job—his own. Actually, no—

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He has got two jobs in mind.

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

I tell a lie. He's interested in two jobs—the one he has got and the Prime Minister's job. They're the only jobs he's interested in.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He has got a housing plan at the Lodge!

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

Yes, he does have a housing plan at the Lodge. I agree with that. Well said. I thought it was worthwhile having a look and seeing what you can buy for 70c. What is it you can buy with the 70c that the Treasurer thinks is the answer to the economic collapse that he has been behind over the last 2½ years? It turns out it's this: a single lolly at some old-school corner stores or service stations; a bread roll from a major supermarket, if they're on sale; a small coin donation to a charity box—it would be a pretty small coin donation; a single photocopy at libraries or office supply stores; a discounted soft-drink can at a clearance sale—it's probably past the use-by date; and an entry into a guessing competition, like, 'How many jelly beans are in the jar?' That is this Treasurer's solution to the biggest collapse in our standard of living in the history of this country. This Treasurer has no idea when it comes to what it takes to have a strong economy.

I said before the budget we've had three budget flops under this Treasurer—three flopped budgets. I said before this one there are three tests. There are three very simple tests. The first is that this budget needs to restore Australians' standard of living. We've seen in 2½ years, on average, an eight per cent reduction in Australians' standard of living, and we know what is behind that—the homegrown inflation that this Treasurer has driven. The Reserve Bank governor called it homegrown. We see grocery prices, for instance, up 30 per cent. Energy prices, gas prices and electricity prices are up over 30 per cent. Insurance bills and mortgage costs—you name it; this Treasurer has overseen a catastrophe on the cost of living that Australians have had to bear. The truth is, throughout that, our core inflation has been higher than most of our peer countries most of the time because this Treasurer never understood what he needed to do about it.

We've seen interest rates that have been higher for longer in this country. I talked about the average Australian family with a mortgage; they've had to find $50,000 that they weren't expecting to have to find—$50,000! The Treasurer's answer is 70c. You've got to be joking. He has no concept of the pain that they are experiencing. I go to food banks—

Government members interjecting—

You should listen to this. I go to food banks right across this country, and I see working people with mortgages going into those food banks who simply can't feed their families. And this Treasurer stands up here and says: 'It's all okay. You're all okay. I'm okay, so aren't you okay?' This bloke has never got it.

The second thing I will say about the cause of this collapse in the standard of living is the increase in personal income taxes being paid. The average Australian is paying $3½ thousand more in personal income taxes than when those opposite came to power, and that's on its way to $10,000.

Government members interjecting—

Nothing you are talking about is going to change that one little bit—

Honourable members interjecting—

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

Order! The member for Hume, I'm sorry. If you could just pause—

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

You have been responsible for higher taxes in this country because you have absolutely failed—

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

The member for Hume, resume your seat for a moment. There are far too many people interjecting outside of their seats; this is not going to continue. If people wish to interject from outside of their seats, they will leave immediately. There is far too much noise. The member for Hume is going to give his speech, and everyone's going to listen to what he says.

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

As I said, the first test is restoring Australians' standard of living. We look at the budget papers, where we can see whether or not Australians' standard of living is going to be restored under their plan, and the answer is: no time soon. They've seen an eight per cent reduction in their real disposable incomes. That's the goods and services that their incomes can buy—eight per cent down since this Treasurer took on the role. He smashed Australians' standard of living. He smashed household budgets to try and improve his budget. He's found $400 billion more to spend by taking it from Australian households, which was my earlier point about taxes.

The truth of the matter is that, when you look at the budget, there is no pathway back anytime soon to the standard of living that Australians had when we were last in power. The Reserve Bank tell us that they expect our standard of living to get back to that level in 2031. That is a lost decade. And, if you leave this bloke in the role, it will be a lot more than a decade, because he has completely failed in this budget to restore Australians' standard of living.

The second test for this budget is whether it restores the hope of Australians who are losing hope. Aspiration and hope are central to the great Australian dream. The hope and aspiration that, over time, you can buy a house, pay it off, keep it as you approach retirement and use it as the basis for a great retirement are disappearing under this government. Hope is disappearing fast. We have seen them make a commitment to build 1.2 million houses, but there's no sign of that. The experts are telling us we'll be lucky to get to 800,000. There was absolutely nothing in this budget that suggested that that great hope of owning a home is coming back anytime soon.

Of course, the other great aspiration so many Australians have is to start and build a business over time. We know on this side of the House—because, unlike those opposite, so many of us have worked in small businesses—that small businesses are the backbone of our local communities. They are absolutely at the heart of employment and prosperity, ensuring that our communities are strong and that we have rising real wages, rising real incomes and a rising standard of living—something that those opposite don't seem to have much interest in. Again, there is absolutely nothing in this budget to suggest that there is any hope being restored anytime soon for those many Australians. There are 2.5 million Australians who own a small business, and we know there are many more who would like to over time, but they are losing hope. Young Australians are giving up on that hope.

I said the third test for this budget was restoring fiscal integrity and honesty. Peter Costello put in place a series of rules back in the 1990s—

Government members interjecting—

Listen to them crow. They've got a new model of government where they just spend like drunken sailors. That's their approach. Peter Costello put the rules in place that have worked for this country for many, many years, and the first thing that this Treasurer did when he came into the role is he threw them all out. He threw them all out because he knew better. His degree in spin taught him that you don't need fiscal rules. You don't need any discipline over the bureaucracy or your colleagues—who all want to spend like drunken sailors; there's no doubt about that. He decided to throw all of those rules out, and the result of that in this budget is red ink as far as the eye can see.

Since Labor came to power, they have added over $400 billion of spending to the final budget numbers that came out when we were in government. That's $400 billion of extra spending. That's $400 billion of extra taxation and red ink as far as the eye can see. Indeed, if you add up the five deficits the Treasurer announced last night, they add up to $170 billion—that's 6,000 bucks for every Australian—being put on the credit card to save this bloke's job. Actually, it's his aspiration to have another job, I think, as well. That's what we saw.

What we saw in this budget was not just a big-spending, big-taxing Labor budget; we also saw a big Australia budget. The numbers here are totally out of control.

An opposition member: It's jaw dropping.

They are jaw-dropping—absolutely right. They are out of control. Those opposite are going to see a number approaching two million people coming into the country in just five years. Now, we are a great immigrant nation, but you've got to get the balance right. There needs to be a balance between the housing supply in this country—which has been in freefall—and our immigration rate. That has been absolutely out of whack whilst this Treasurer and those opposite have been in power. It has been a complete disaster. Every time we get a new forecast, up it goes. Up it goes. They've added 700,000 to the forecast over just a few years. And the actual outcomes are quite extraordinary: over a million people coming into this country in just two years. They've lost control.

The result of that is that GDP per capita in this country has gone backwards for seven consecutive quarters. The only thing driving this country is Australians working for more hours, and their real incomes have gone backwards. The Treasurer should actually listen to some of this because he should try to get across the economics of what's going on here and not just focus on the spin. He has absolutely no idea about how an economy works. We see, as I say, an immigration rate which is completely unsustainable under this government. And they have lost control of our borders.

Now, there is a better way. There is a better way. We know that the way forward is to beat inflation, to boost growth, to back small businesses with accelerated depreciation. Those opposite reluctantly come to this place each year and say, 'Oh, I suppose we've got to give something to small business.' But I tell you what we've done is we've said, 'No, we're going to change that.' We're going to make this a permanent part of our taxation system. It's a permanent incentive for every small business in this country to invest, create jobs, create opportunities, and create prosperity for every Australian. Those opposite will never come at that. That's lower taxes. That's lower taxes that are going to drive prosperity for every Australian.

And we know, while I'm on this topic, that the worst thing that we could do with our taxation system is to start creating a system where you tax unrealised capital gains. But this Treasurer has absolutely no idea about how wealth is created. The truth is he is quite happy to go after unrealised capital gains of smart farmers and small-business people. And you know what, Mr Speaker? That means that those capital gains are going to have to be realised; that means a farm gets sold, a small business gets sold because they have to find access to that cash.

I said we've got to beat inflation, boost growth and back small business. We've got to fix our housing supply too. That means making sure that we are breaking the infrastructure bottlenecks that we know are holding back housing supply in this country. We also know that we need to deliver affordable, reliable energy. The failure on this has been astronomical. Those opposite promised a $275 reduction. The Minister for Climate Change and Energy promised a $275 reduction. The Treasurer was asked about this the other day, and he couldn't name the number; he couldn't do it. It was like an episode out of Fawlty Towers. Don't mention $275. Don't mention $275, because the truth of the matter is they have absolutely failed on one of their core promises from before the last election.

I know in my electorate and the electorate of the minister for energy Australians are paying $1,300 more than was promised by Labor. This is an absolute disaster, and we know putting more supply into the system is always going to be the answer. A renewables-only strategy is never going to work, but that is the path those opposite are on, and it has been a complete disaster for our country. Australians cannot afford another three years of Labor. Australians are poorer after three years of Labor, and 70c a day in over a years' time is going to do absolutely nothing to change that.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We've seen a rare occurrence: the Treasurer speaking, followed by the shadow Treasurer actually having something to say! He didn't quite get to 30 minutes, but, after I speak, I'm looking forward to the Leader of the Opposition explaining to people why he doesn't support tax cuts for hardworking Australians. Then again, it shouldn't come as a surprise, because this time last year they were in here, firstly, saying they would oppose our tax cuts, then saying they would roll them back and then demanding an election—that was a year ago—just to stop hardworking Australians getting a tax cut.

What last night's budget was about was building on the foundations that we have laid in our first term for a stronger economy in order to deliver even more in our second term. This is a government that came to office in the middle of what have been five difficult years. We had the COVID pandemic with its long tail and the issues with supply chains that arose out of that. We then had a global inflation crisis, exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That saw, around the industrialised world, inflation and unemployment in some countries hit double digits, in either or in both. We have New Zealand, just across the ditch, in a deep recession. And our task has been to navigate these turbulent seas whilst keeping our eye on the horizon, to navigate the circumstances and bring inflation down whilst providing cost-of-living relief, whilst making sure we didn't follow what some of the pointy-headed economists would say, which is you need unemployment up and you need people to suffer. That is not the Labor way. The Labor way is to get inflation down whilst supporting working people. That's why what we have done is get inflation down. We've got wages up, we've got taxes down, we've got employment growing, all of it achieved on this Treasurer's watch with the four budgets that we have produced.

In addition to that, when we came to office—just to go through some of the figures—inflation had a six in front; now it's at 2.4 and falling. Wages had gone backwards five quarters in a row. Now they've gone forwards five quarters in a row. Living standards were falling. Now we see a per capita increase in living standards, making a difference for Australians. Interest rates had started to rise before the last election. Now they have started to fall, before the coming election. All of these measures are important, but nothing's more important to the Australian Labor Party than jobs, and we have created 1.1 million jobs on our watch, more than any government in Australian history. Average unemployment is lower than at any time for any government in the last 50 years, and we've done it because we have had a cohesive strategy going forward to strengthen the economy while looking after people, while dealing with the immediate pressures, but with our eye always on the long term.

If you look at the measures, I want to go through three categories: what we've done, what we will do in our second term and what the risk is. On tax cuts, what we've done is make a difficult decision. I went to this place that's foreign to the opposition leader, known as the National Press Club, and I put the case for tax cuts for every taxpayer, not just for some. That particularly assisted young people. It particularly assisted women. It of course made sure that some people missed out. It's difficult saying to people, 'You are going to get legislated nine grand, but you're going to get 4½ grand in your pocket. But, you know what, the country's going to be stronger for it because Middle Australia will benefit.' We did that. What these tax cuts in this legislation do is build on that, once again having a tax cut for every Australian taxpayer, not just some. Together with the measures that began this financial year, they will benefit average Australians by over $2½ thousand. That's $2½ thousand extra money in their pockets.

Then we go to energy bill relief. We intervened in the market. Those opposite have talked a bit about gas and securing gas in the last couple of days. We intervened at the end of 2022 to make sure that we have security, to make sure that we can direct gas for domestic supply when it's needed and to make sure that we have a mandated code of conduct, not the voluntary thing that those opposite had during their so-called gas led recovery that they announced a decade ago, when nothing happened, which didn't result in anything at all. We did all that. You know who voted against it? They did. We brought parliament back, and they voted against it, like they voted against our cap on gas and coal prices. And then they had the hide to say, 'Energy prices—we care about it.' They voted against caps—

Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Because your caps didn't work!

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and they voted against the energy bill relief of $300. And they voted against—they didn't support—our second lot of energy bill relief as well.

Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's an unmitigated failure!

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

Order! The member for Fairfax will cease interjecting.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And the leading advocate for the nuclear reactor industry over there is going off. There's a meltdown happening! There's a meltdown. This guy wants a plan that will cost $600 billion, that's the most expensive form of new energy possible and that will produce four per cent of Australia's energy needs sometime in the 2040s—sometime in the 2040s! And it is a plan that the private sector won't have a bar of, which is why it has to be funded by the taxpayer, which is why they will have to cut health, education, services, housing, public servants—everything. The only cut this bloke doesn't want is a cut to peoples' taxes. That is the only cut he doesn't like.

Then we go to health care and bulk-billing. In our first term, in the last budget, the bulk-billing incentive was tripled for 11 million Australians, and last night's budget extends that to 27 million Australians, enabling the bulk-billing rate to be lifted to 90 per cent. We know those opposite supported zero rates of bulk-billing because they tried to introduce a tax for every time people visited the GP or every time they visited an emergency department and they tried to increase the cost of pharmaceuticals as well. There is one thing that they have said right in the last week: 'If you want to look at what they'll do, have a look at past performance.' We know what their past performance has been.

Then we get to urgent care clinics. We promised 50; we delivered 87 and we are going to deliver another 50. This is the sort of investment that those opposite say is 'waste' that they want to get rid of. When it comes to medicines, they ridiculed our plan for cheaper medicines and they ridiculed our plan for 60-day dispensing, both of which are making a difference to Australians out there. We have frozen the cost of PBS medicines for pensioners to just $7.70 while for other Australians the price for PBS medicines is down to $25, the same price that they were in 2004. This bloke, last time he was in office, tried to increase it by $5.

During our first term, we delivered cheaper child care, benefitting families by $2,700. This time around, we have abolished the activity test, provided three days guaranteed child care and put a billion dollars into childcare infrastructure. Then we go to schools. We came into office in 2007, and Julia Gillard, as education minister, implemented the Gonski review, which identified the school resourcing standard, to give every Australian young person the opportunity to succeed in life. We started that process. Those opposite came into office and, at the same time as ripping $50 billion out of public hospitals, they ripped $30 billion out of public schools. They don't like anything to do with public over there; that is very, very clear. This week, after working with sensible people in the state conservative parties like Premier David Crisifulli, we have included a schools funding agreement, $16.5 billion, in last night's budget. We have increased investment from the states and territories to make a substantial difference.

Then we have TAFE. We have free TAFE; 600,000 Australians have benefited. The deputy leader came to this dispatch box and said, 'People don't value it because it's free'. Those opposite don't understand what Australians' values are, so no wonder they don't like Medicare, no wonder they don't like free TAFE, no wonder they don't like public education. We will make our free TAFE permanent. We have already taken $3 billion off peoples' HECS debts but we will take a further 20 per cent off the HECS debt that people—young Australians, in particular—have to pay. Again, those opposite, by saying it's all waste, are holding the line.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Slap a bit on the credit card, son.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I look forward to your contribution, Mr Pasin. When it comes to housing, those opposite have opposed all of the initiatives. It doesn't matter where it is, whether it be increased support for public housing or increased support for build-to-rent, for private rentals, or whether it be increased home ownership through the Help to Buy scheme, they have opposed all of that as well.

Then they had the hide on this morning's radio—this is a mob that left us with a $78 billion deficit that we turned into a $22 billion surplus. The following year, they left us with a $56 billion forecast deficit that we turned into a $15 billion surplus. This year, we have almost halved the deficit that they forecast. And those opposite had the hide this morning out there on their TV roundups to speak about a stronger economy and to speak about fiscal policy. They are delulu with no solulu. They are completely delusional when it comes to that. And then they go and sledge young women out there who Australians are listening to. You just keep sledging away. You just stay in touch with the narrow base that you have, because that is what this bloke has spent three years doing—shifting the Liberal Party further and further to the right.

There are four moderates up there. They sit in the second row—the members for Menzies and Flinders and Bass and Bradfield on the way out. And that's it. They get further and further out towards the door as more and more the geniuses from the LNP right occupy the front benches over here. They are more and more conservative, more and more right wing and more and more divisive. They have no solutions for the Australian people. They come before this parliament and say that they oppose tax cuts yet again for Australians. Mind you, it is what they said last time they would do, just before they rolled over and then supported it and then pretended that none of that ever happened. Today they will have an opportunity. Today they will have to vote on whether they support Australians earning more and keeping more of what they earn, which is what our agenda is. I look forward to the contributions.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to 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.

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The words that you've just heard from the Leader of the Opposition are the ultimate testament to Liberal lunacy. The Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Treasurer have dragged their colleagues, hangdog, into this chamber to vote against lower taxes. That's what's going on here. All of those are lining up opposite to vote against lower taxes. The party of so-called small government in this moment is in this chamber voting against lower taxes. Robert Menzies would be rolling in his grave—which is perhaps why the seat of Robert Menzies is no longer in their pile!

All we hear from the Leader of the Opposition is his method of division and his attempt to come and scare the Australian people. Fear and division is what he has been about. He simply comes in here and rolls out his old bag of tropes, which he has had for the last two decades, around what he says in relation to the Labor Party. In terms of the contribution of the shadow Treasurer today, every time the Shadow Treasurer opens his mouth is a moment closer to the Rhodes Trust asking for their money back! He has done absolutely nothing to make an argument about why the Liberal Party should be in here voting against lower taxes, and yet that is the situation that we find ourselves in.

We understand the challenges that Australians are facing. Those on the other side are sneering at the money that we are ensuring is in the pockets of Australians around this country. In total, the tax cuts that we have put in place will see $50 a week for the average income earner stay in their pockets; that's a result of the tax cuts that we've put in place. But those opposite sneer at that. They say it's nothing. They're out there pretending that what we are doing in terms of income tax relief and energy bill relief is making no difference. They will give every description under the sun about the challenges that people are facing right now, but, when it comes to actually doing something about that and helping Australians who are facing those challenges, they stand in opposition to all of it.

They have been opposed to tax cuts. They have been opposed to energy bill relief. They have been opposed to more affordable child care. They have been opposed to cheaper medicines. At every step along the way, as we have sought to put in place policies which make it easier for people to deal with the circumstances that they face, those opposite stand resolutely opposed to it. The Australian people understand that, and, in the coming weeks and months as we lead up to the next election, they will not forget it, nor will they forget the country that those opposite left us.

When we came to power, inflation was running at 6.1 per cent, and it was going higher. Today it is 2.4 per cent, and it is going lower. When we came to government, those opposite had left us a trillion dollars of debt with nothing to show for it. And to be clear, the debt story started well and truly before the pandemic. There was nothing they wouldn't throw money at. Again, the party of smaller government, the party of so-called prudent economic management, gave this country debt as far as it could see. That is what we inherited. That is the situation that we were dealing with.

In the very first full financial year that we presided over this nation's affairs, we delivered a surplus, and, in the following year, we delivered another one. Two surpluses, two years—that is something that the Liberals promised they would do every single year but didn't do once. As a result of the budget that we handed down last night, the budget bottom line now is $207 billion better than what was forecast when the Liberals were in power. That means that over the course of the decade $60 billion worth of interest is being saved by the Australian people. We have released the country from $207 billion of Liberal debt. That's what we've done. But we've done it because we understand what we are about.

We understand that the people who feel the economy most are the people who have the least. It is in places like in the Treasurer's seat of Logan or in my seat of Corio where people feel what it means when the economy is doing it tough. That's why we understand that the most Labor act that we can take is to manage the budget in a prudent way. That's why, as we have faced the global inflation challenge, we have done so in a way where we have not only brought inflation down but have made sure that unemployment has remained low and that we've got real wages going again for the first time after a decade of wage stagnation.

We've done that by improving the wages of those who need it the most. Literally, the first act of the Albanese Labor government was to intervene in the national wage case to see an increase in the minimum wage above the rate of inflation. From there, we saw increases in wages for those in aged care and for those in child care—feminised industries where people are not paid a lot. It is off the back of those interventions—those acts of policy on the part of the Albanese Labor government—that we are in a position where, on this day, real wages are growing across the country again. We understand that an economy where wages are growing, where unemployment is low, where we've had economic growth in every quarter throughout this period and where we have got inflation down is an economy which works for the people who have the least, and we are focused on that. In the process, we've been focused on making sure that we are giving people cost-of-living relief along the way by cutting HECS debt, which was in the budget last night and is an historic investment in education; by the biggest investment in Medicare that we have seen since the establishment of Medicare more than 40 years ago, an investment which will mean that nine out of 10 visits to the GP will be bulk-billed—there will be no gap fees and people will need to pay nothing; or by energy bill relief or cheaper medicines, such that the maximum price for a PBS medicine payment will be $25. The last time people were paying $25 for medicines was back in 2004. All of those measures are focused and have been focused on enabling people to deal with the cost-of-living challenges that the nation has faced—that, in fact, the world has faced—over the last few years.

All of that has been done in the face of the opposition of the Liberal Party. Now, they drag their members into this chamber to vote against lower taxes, and they sneer at those who are receiving lower taxes, because of the amount that's being talked about—$50 a week. That is what the accumulated amount of tax cuts represents for those who we have provided tax cuts to since we have been in power. That is what they are voting against. It's the cost-of-living relief that we've been putting in place that they are challenging.

Those opposite managed the economy appallingly. Back then, we had a prime minister who, unbeknownst to us all, was also the Treasurer and the resources minister. The Treasurer and the resources minister at the time didn't know that either. That was the chaos of the government that led this country through a lost decade. Let me be clear: the lost Liberal decade remains absolutely fresh in the minds of Australian voters. It will very much be there when the Australian voters go to the polls in the coming weeks and the coming months. Let's also be clear: the guilty party—the Liberal Party—remain absolutely present in terms of their place in this parliament and the choice that is given to the Australian people at the next election.

On this side of the House, with the Albanese government, we stand on the side of Australians. We stand for cutting taxes. We stand for investing in education. We stand for investing in health. We stand for building opportunity. We stand for building aspiration. In the words of the Prime Minister, we are a government which is holding no-one back and leaving no-one behind.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Greens will be supporting this bill and voting for it, but we should be clear. This tiny tax-tweak budget is a massive missed opportunity for real cost-of-living relief, like getting dental into Medicare—73c a day in 15 months time won't help that much when your rent has gone up by hundreds of dollars already.

Everyday people are being asked to wait over a year for a very, very small amount of relief. Meanwhile, big corporations continue to laugh all the way to the bank right now. Under Labor's budget, one in three big corporations pays no tax. They could be raking in billions of dollars a year. Exxon Mobil brought in $15 billion in revenue one year and paid $0 tax. When a nurse pays more tax than a multinational, something is deeply wrong, but that's what Labor's budget delivers.

When it comes to coal and gas corporations, it's closer to one in two of them paying no tax at all, and, most of the time, they don't even pay for their gas in the first place. You show me any other business that gets its materials free, paid for by the government. Restaurants don't get that. Offices don't get that. Factories don't get that. But, if you're a big gas corporation, this government's budget gives you the gas for free, and then they don't ask you to pay any tax on it. Under this budget, under Labor's budget, by 2028, everyday Australian beer drinkers are going to be paying twice as much tax as the gas tax collects, because that is Labor's priority. This budget was a massive missed opportunity to make the big corporations pay their fair share of tax. One in three big corporations are paying no tax at all. When a nurse pays more tax than a multinational, under Labor, something is deeply wrong.

It is because the government has refused to make the big corporations pay their fair share of tax—it has been happy to take their political donations but has refused to make them pay their fair share of tax—that we see this tiny tax tweak coming for people in over 15 months' time while the big corporations continue to get massive support and massive subsidies now. There are $56 billion in subsidies, in handouts, paid for by the everyday taxpayer to the fossil fuel industry. There are $176 billion in handouts to wealthy property investors. But everyday people, well, they get told they've got to wait over a year for 73c a day, even though their rent has gone up by hundreds of dollars and their mortgage has gone up by similar amounts.

The Greens have a plan to make the big corporations pay their fair share of tax to deliver real cost-of-living relief, like getting dental and mental health into Medicare, like wiping student debt, like making public school genuinely free so people don't have to pay those so-called 'voluntary' fees of hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars every year. We could do all of that. But it's going to take a bit of courage to make the big corporations pay their fair share of tax and not keep shifting the burden onto everyday people.

Right now, people are skipping meals to pay the rent. People are avoiding going to the dentist because they can't afford it. People are skipping going to see the GP because of low bulk-billing rates. There are things we could do about this right now. We could not ask people to wait 15 months but deliver some real cost-of-living relief to people right now. That's what this place should be about; it should be about acting in the public interest, not acting in the corporate interest. But that's what this budget does.

The government say, 'No, you've got to look at all of the tax cuts we've put in together.' Well, even when you do that, billionaires and politicians still end up getting four times the tax cut as a low-income earner. People are really doing it tough and need assistance right now. We could deliver it if we said to those one-in-three big corporations that are paying no tax, 'You've got to start paying tax.'

The Greens have outlined a plan to make big corporations pay tax, and it will deliver over $500 billion over the next decade. That would help fund getting dental into Medicare now, getting mental health into Medicare now, making it free to see the GP now. But what are this government's priorities? In this week, which is the last week of parliament before the election, we could have legislated to lock in tripling the bulk-billing incentive for everyone, something the Greens announced months ago and pushed for months ago. The government came on board and said it was a good idea, and we said: 'Let's legislate it now to Dutton-proof it, to ensure that it can't be undone in the future either by a hostile Senate or by a hostile minister. Let's get it into legislation.' No, the government didn't want to do that.

We were the only ones at the last election saying we've got to wipe student debt. It means people are never able to get ahead. We're becoming a country where, even if you do all the things that are asked of you—you work hard and you study hard—you still can't afford a place to rent and you still find yourself with a massive debt to pay that influences so many decisions over your whole life. We pushed and pushed at the last election and all the way through this parliament, saying, 'We've got to take action on student debt.' The government came along and said, 'Well, tell you what, we'll wipe 20 per cent.' And we said: 'Okay. That's a good start. Let's legislate it. Let's Dutton-proof it. Let's not hold it ransom to the outcome of the election. Let's start legislating it and deliver relief for people right now.' No, the government didn't want to do that. The government wants to hold help for students and former students and families ransom to the outcome of the next election when we could be delivering it now. So the government don't want to legislate cutting student debt this week and they don't want to legislate being able to see the GP for free, even though they say it's their policy and, 'Just trust us; we'll do it after the election.' They don't want to legislate those.

What they did find time to do this week was work with the coalition to gut our environment and climate laws simply because the Leader of the Opposition asked. They found time to come into this place and rush through legislation that is not just about something happening in Tasmania—delivering for the rotten salmon corporations, as the government wants to do—but that is going to have an impact across the whole of the country. That's why the Australian Conservation Foundation has said today that this is a sell-out and that—get this, Deputy Speaker—environment protections were stronger under Scott Morrison than they are under this Prime Minister. That's where we're left at the end of this parliament. That's the verdict. That is the verdict of Australia's biggest conservation organisation.

The government didn't find time to legislate to wipe student debt and deliver help to people right now, nor to legislate to triple the bulk-billing incentive even though they say it's their policy, but they did find time to deliver for the big corporations and gut our environment and climate laws and leave our environment laws weaker than they were when Scott Morrison was in power. They didn't find time to do any of that, but they did find time to bring forward legislation that won't have an impact until 15 months time.

This is why people are shifting away from the major parties in droves. This is why we have a situation at the moment where less than a third of the country votes for the government and a bit more than a third of the country votes for the opposition. About a third of the country is now voting for someone else, including the Greens. When governments are in and they don't use their power to make people's lives better now, then people lose faith in governments. That, in turn, leaves space—as we've seen overseas—for the likes of Trump and for the likes of the Leader of the Opposition here, because they feed off that discontent.

There's an antidote to this. There's a way to prevent Trump-style politics coming to Australia, which is to use the power of government to make people's lives better now—to say that in a wealthy country like Australia everyone should be able to afford the basics: a roof over their head, groceries and housing. That's what government should be for—to help now.

Instead, we've seen rents go up by 30 per cent and mortgages soar as well, and the government say, 'There's nothing we can do about it.' We've seen student debts soar, and the government say, 'We can't legislate about it in this parliament.' We've seen people avoiding going to the doctor because they can't afford it, and the government say: 'You just have to trust us; we might do something about that next election. There's plenty of time to gut our environment and climate laws and plenty of time to ensure that Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer continue to get billions in subsidies, but, sorry, no time to help you people.' That is what gives rise to discontent in our community. It sees the gap between the haves and the have-nots grow. And then along come the likes of the hard right, the Trumps and the Leader of the Opposition, and they feed on that discontent. We should be using this place just to make people's lives better. That's what we should be doing, and we should be doing it now.

And we could do it now. Stop tinkering around the edges, Labor. Stop saying, 'We can only do something in 15 months time.' Let's use this place to make people's lives better now, to deliver real cost-of-living relief. Because the thing is, in the long run, doing something like getting dental into Medicare, legislating so that we can see the GP for free or making it genuinely free to send your kids to a public school, funding it by making the big corporations pay their fair share of tax—that's the action that people want to see, and when it happens people will reward you for it. Instead we have a government addicted to timidity and an opposition that would be terrible.

That is why, in this environment where a third of the country is now saying, 'We don't want either of you'—and that figure is growing—I'm actually a bit optimistic. I'm optimistic because this election gives us a once-in-a-generation chance to keep Dutton out and get Labor to act. The experts are all saying there is going to be a minority parliament. Last time there was one, the Greens got dental into Medicare for kids, we got action on climate that saw pollution starting to come down and we got $13 billion for clean and renewable energy. This is our chance to get dental into Medicare for everyone.

We know, because we've just witnessed three years of it, that the opposition is going to try and tear everything down, which is why the Liberals need to be kept as far away from power as possible. But, even when they've got the opportunity to, Labor won't act. At best, we get tinkering around the edges. At worst, they take us backwards, like the environment groups have said has happened with our environment laws. Imagine that—what a badge of honour to have the biggest environment organisation now say environment protections were better under Scott Morrison than under this current Prime Minister! But that is why. We have seen over the course of this week an object example of why we need to keep the Liberals out and get Labor to act. And that will happen with more Greens in the coming minority parliament. We got dental into Medicare for kids last time. Let's get it in for everyone else now.

You just have to look at who's lost out in this budget. People on income support are still living in poverty, there are more cuts to the NDIS and the Treasurer didn't mention 'climate' or 'environment' once in his speech last night. There's nothing new for renters. The cost of AUKUS two budgets ago was $6 billion. It went up to $12 billion. And now, in their latest budget, it's $18 billion. That's for submarines that are never going to arrive, that tie us further to Donald Trump and that paint a huge Donald Trump shaped target on Australia's back. Those are the priorities of this government and they need a shake-up as we keep the Liberals out.

We've seen in this budget that Greens pressure works. We've seen some action on student debt. We've seen a tripling of the bulk-billing incentive. But we've got to, at this coming election, seize the chance to get some real action. People want assistance. People need help right now. We are in a climate and environment crisis, we are in a housing and rental crisis and we are in a cost-of-living crisis. We know that the opposition will tear everything down and deliver for billionaires, just as we've seen Donald Trump do in the United States, which is why we've got to keep them out. As we've seen this week, the only way that we're going to keep Dutton out and get Labor to act is by getting more Greens in parliament.

Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasury Laws Amendment (More Cost of Living Relief) Bill 2025 legislates a small cut to personal income tax—$5 a week next year and then $10 a week the year after that. We rely way too much on personal income tax. A big driver of this overreliance is bracket creep. These tax cuts are a one-off way of addressing bracket creep, but there's a simple way to stop this getting worse and make both sides of politics accountable for their spending decisions. There's only one honest, long-term way to address bracket creep, and that's to index our tax brackets.

In Australia, you pay more tax when you move into a higher tax bracket. So, when you get a raise to cover increasing living costs, more of your income is taxed at a higher rate. That means people pay higher average income rates every year. That's right—more tax every year. This is bad news for taxpayers and good news for whoever's in government. It means the government gets a slush fund each year of extra tax that they can spend on whatever they want. Every Australian loses because of this. In lots of other countries, tax brackets are indexed with inflation and so you only pay a higher average rate of tax if your pay goes up more than the cost of living. But, unfortunately, because indexing tax brackets serves neither major party, you won't hear much about it unless there's pressure from the crossbench and from the public. Both major parties value the fact that they'll be given access to additional tax revenue when it's their turn in government.

I've asked the Treasurer about this in question time, and there's not much enthusiasm for it. With indexed tax brackets, successive governments wouldn't be able to treat the hidden additional revenue as accountability-free pocket money or demonstrate periodic confected largesse. Any decision to spend more would need to be made explicitly, with clear trade-offs and with the permission of the electorate.

A stalemate over genuine tax reform has evolved between the major parties over the last 30 years, with ideology overriding facts and evidence. Political leaders are hamstrung by their legacies of promises not to touch anything, so we end up tinkering around the edges like this. Tax policy cannot be taboo. We must design a tax system for future decades. Now, I will back these tax cuts because they're better than nothing. They're one short-term way to address bracket creep. But, if the government were serious about transparency and tax reform, it would be going further and prioritising longer-term fixes.

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

I'm an accountant who's been in practice and had my own practice. I worked in corporate, cost and tax and had my own business for about 10 years. I had about 600 clients. This document just confounds me. What I see in this document is obviously a document that people thought they didn't have to write. It's a Balmain budget brain burp. It is the tie you put on as you run out the door when you didn't think you had to go to work. It's like the homework that's been written by the student on the bus to school.

You have to have productive assets to underpin a profit and loss. You must buy assets. You've got to have productive and prudent assets. A prudent asset for a nation is dams, rail, roads, mines and ag country. They're the things that allow you to produce wealth so you can pay for your NDIS, so you can pay for your pensions and so you can pay for other policies that are essential. But this didn't talk to it. What it spoke to is how we spend money, not how we earn money. That is always a very dangerous outcome.

I will give you one example. We've never had a trillion dollars in debt, but we are going to get there now. The concept of a trillion dollars—it's such an easy word. But you can't fathom exactly how much debt you're going to have. If a trillion dollars was in seconds, it would be 31,700 years. If a trillion dollars was to be split up amongst the—I don't know—28 million people we have, that would be about $35,700 for every man, woman and child on their own individual credit cards with their own name on it. It has to be repaid. If you don't meet your interest payments on your credit card, you know what happens.

Ladies and gentlemen, your second-biggest expense now is the interest on your credit card. Do you understand what that compromises—the other things we could have done, from cancer research to defending our nation, that we can't do now because your debt is out of control? I said that maybe 15 years ago. I got sacked from the shadow finance minister job because they said, 'That's outrageous.' Then, ladies and gentlemen, it was $150 billion. I said: 'Be careful. This is getting out of control. It could go through half a trillion.' They said that was outrageous. They didn't know what I was talking about. You know—laugh, giggle, laugh, giggle. I got my backside booted out of the job.

Now you've outdone me. You're going to a trillion. You've really done well. Congratulations. Superb effort. We have a time right now where we should be, as this nation, becoming as powerful as possible as quickly as possible. It is not time for the vagaries of teals and Greens. There are only two sides—I have to say it—that have ever had the responsibility of running the show. It's the Labor side and coalition.

Everybody else can have marvellous commentary, but we've had the communist party of China off the coast of Sydney practising live fire. Do you get that? Do you get what that means? Where do you want them to go—into Sydney Harbour? When do we understand how serious this really has become? They circumnavigated Australia, probably working out where all our communications are. They're working out how they get to a place, what they can do and how quickly they can do it. We couldn't even get one of our own naval vessels out there to follow them. We had to rely on New Zealand. We didn't even know what they were doing. We had to rely on a Virgin commercial aircraft to tell us.

You look at this budget that follows it up—that's right. You would think it would be screaming at that issue. It would be working out right now what to do. It would take the Australian people into their confidence and say, 'We've got this. We know it is before us. The rule book is going out the window now. We are going to focus absolutely 100 per cent on this nation and protect it. We don't care.' Other things are great ideas. They are benevolent ideas and they are well-meaning but we haven't got the time anymore; that is beyond us. Whether it is our side or their side, we don't have that epiphany. We had better have it—in a big rush.

The other issue in our seats and in regional seats—in the member for Cowper's seat and my seat—is we have the poorest people in Australia. To be quite frank, they probably don't follow the budget; they wouldn't watch it. They would probably know very little about it. We actually do see them. We see people who are living in their cars and they are not drug addicts, not alcoholics. Some of them have jobs but they just can't afford to live in a house. In this incredible nation, with all our resources, more and more of these people are becoming destitute. When the floods went through Queensland and northern New South Wales, so many people who were living in parks didn't even have those at the end; they were gone. We have an obligation to those people as well to throw out the rule book. We have an obligation, as we make our nation as powerful as possible, as quickly as possible, to give them some dignity back in their lives and to understand what is the essence of this. How do you do it? Where do you go?

You have to have a fundamental structural analysis of your balance sheet—your assets and your liabilities. You know your liabilities are there so you have to get red-hot productive assets to drive the PNL to a profit because it is out of that profit that you get the capacity to help these people. One of the fundamental things that sits underneath our capacity to do any of that is energy prices. If you don't have cheap energy and you want to be competitive, you really only have two places to go. You can have cheap labour, but the member for Watson would rightly stand up and absolutely smash us on that. Cheap labour is not the solution. Or you can have your minerals, your base commodities, cheap but you can't because they are on the global market. They come in on the global market, are tradeable on the global market and that is it.

So you only have one strategic advantage—that is, cheap energy—but we don't have it. We have become infatuated with intermittent power. Intermittent power—res ipsa loquitur—speaks for itself. It is not working. It is now the most expensive power in the developed world. Getting more of it is not going to make the problem better; it is going to make the problem worse, much worse, and the chances of getting that lady out of her car and into a house becomes fewer and fewer because nothing fundamentally changes the dial. This is a part of the process. These things, our external threat and the internal dilemma, work together—that is, the external threat of what is happening geopolitically and the internal dilemma of how we manage to get dignity back into peoples' lives.

Does this budget address that? I fundamentally believe that there was a belief that they were going to call an election but for the ex-tropical cyclone, and this budget became an afterthought. Nonetheless, it should be a document that gives some respect to the job that it has before them, which is to take Australia to a better place, and it is not doing that. Last night in the Treasurer's speech, I never heard the word 'agriculture' once. It was never mentioned. I did hear the words 'climate change'. 'Regional development'—didn't hear that. When you think about it, where is our wealth coming from? These are not made in Australia. This is not made in Australia. Shoes are not made in Australia; although maybe they are if they are RMs. The car you drive, the fuel that is in it, the stereo at home, the phone in your pocket, all come in from overseas. Going back to your P&L and going back to your assets and your balance sheet, all that comes in from overseas. For that little piece of polymer in your pocket, called your dollar note, to have any value, somebody from overseas must want it. And what do we want off us? We don't make anything really, so what they want off us is iron ore, coal, gas, cotton, beef, grain, banking—there is a bit of banking—and education. I'll give it to you there with education. But overwhelmingly those are products from regional Australia. Given a document that was prudent and that was competent, whether you liked people in regional Australia or not, you would speak to it. You would speak to how that was going to segue into the national purpose of having a fundamentally cogently constructed document that would give us both the prospect of a better standard of living to deal with the cost-of-living crisis, and the capacity, in what are incredibly vague times, to defend our nation.

If you don't give it in that document, then where are you going to give it? Because that is your election pitch. Last night was it. There it is, Australia. There is the reason to re-elect the Labor government. Make a decision—do you believe that they've done their homework, or do you believe that was scratched out on the way to school?

If there has to be, within this coming electoral debate, a decisive and clear understanding of the predicament that Australia now finds itself in—very assertive moves must be made to deal with that issue. The courage is needed to put aside what are wonderful ideas but which are obviously not working, such as intermittent power, and just to say, 'We are only going to do one thing here. We are going to make Australia as powerful as possible as quickly as possible, and we're going to go to the person who is at the bottom end of the social strata and say, "We are fundamentally changing the structure of how we do business to give you a prospect of getting ahead, of getting out of your car, of getting back into a house and of getting away from the indignity of, basically, living"'—I've seen them around. There are no toilets, no police, no hospital and no sewerage around the house. Come out to regional areas. You actually see it. What we're seeing for this is $5 a week, truly. It's supposed to be the seminal item of where this electorate will go. When you watch television, they say there's going to be a debate about this—about $5 a week! In Peel Street in Tamworth, there is not a coffee shop where you can buy a cup of coffee for 5 bucks. Those days are over.

Is this as complex as this debate's going to get? Is this where we've arrived? To try and get some sense, we have to have, across the parliament, the ability to attract people to this place who have run a business. I think that is something that we are desperately in need of. We need to attract more people, on both sides, who have actually run a business, because it is that fear you get when you've run a business—when Friday comes and you have to pay the wages for the staff and you think, 'I don't know whether I've quite got it in the bank,' and you have to ring up the people who owe you money and say: 'You gotta pay me. You've gotta pay me. You've gotta pay me.' It is drilled into you—the realities of what happens when your budget, your document, is unsound.

In my life, in closing, there were three groups of people, and two fascinated me. There were the people who became exceptionally wealthy, and I had to deal with them. They were very lucky. My best client paid about $160,000 a year in the accountancy fees that I charged them. There were the very wealthy, then there were a big group in the middle. They're really nice people, but you don't really learn much from them. And then there were the people that went broke. They fascinated me as well. You look at those two different types of people, and what were they doing? The one fundamental thing you could say is that the people who get ahead are brilliant at understanding the value of productive assets, and they have a thing—it might be old-fashioned—called prudence. The people who go broke have an absolute desire for chattels—for consumable goods—and no idea about the value of money. They go broke, and we better get with the first group and away from the last one.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd advise the House and advise members that at the end of this speech we'll be bringing this to a vote, because it's time for this parliament to decide whether or not we're going to provide a tax cut for every Australian.

You would have thought that, for the big fight that those opposite decide to pick when they get to budget night and do the presser afterwards, the whole backbench would be ready to come in behind its leadership. But we get the shadow Treasurer making a speech, then the Leader of the Opposition and then no-one—none of the backbench turn up! We have two speeches from the crossbench—because no-one from there jumps. Then the member for New England comes in to be the one loyal soldier to give a speech about tax cuts. It's a 15-minute speech, but he gets to the 13-minute mark and still hasn't mentioned them, then refers to them for all of 24 seconds before returning to the rest of his stream of consciousness.

Today is the day when this term—and where the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Treasurer have taken their party—reaches full circle. Never again let it be said by those opposite that, somehow, they think they are the party of lower taxes. Up until today, they've been able to say, 'It was just the Leader of the Opposition,' or, 'It was just the shadow Treasurer.' We know they're saying that, because it's in the papers. We know that they're all running off all their backbenchers, complaining about the lack of a coherent economic message.

Today, all that changes. When the tax cuts were announced for the previous budget, they were initially going to fight them. They were going to hold an early election over them. But, eventually, they folded and said: 'Okay. Maybe we'll support them. We just won't be happy about it.' Today, you can't go back to your branches anymore and say: 'That's just the leadership. That's not what we believe.' You will now go back to your branches after what's about to happen, and it will be on you that you have voted for every worker in your electorates to have higher taxes. You're about to actively be part of that decision.

Part of the reason why we're bringing this to a vote now is that I want to give the Senate the chance to consider this tonight. I want there to be an opportunity for this to be law. Because, make no mistake, the conversation that those opposite will be having with their party members and with every single person who votes for them will not be about explaining whether or not they want to give this money but about the fact that they want to take it away.

They keep telling us in interview after interview—the shadow Treasurer used the line again on the weekend—'The best guide to future action is past performance.' Well, they are about to provide the textbook case of past performance, which is: when you are given a decision, do you vote for taxes to be lower or higher? Members on this side are about to vote for taxes to be lower. We're about to vote consistently with how we've voted on every cost-of-living measure. We know that if you want cost of living to be eased for people, you want their taxes to be lower, and we voted for that. Those opposite are about to vote for taxes to be higher. To ease cost of living, you want wages to be higher, and we voted for that. At every single opportunity, those opposite have voted to restrain wages, just as they did for nine years, when low wage growth was a deliberate design feature of how they managed the economy.

They have been consistent with every other cost-of-living measure, opposing energy bill relief, opposing free TAFE and opposing cheaper medicines, but it has taken until today that they have been forced to have the vote on where they stand on taxation. Let's remember that these tax cuts build on what we did last time that they didn't want us to do. They are a top-up on what happened last time. When you put them together, you get an average tax cut of $43 a week for 2026-27 and an average tax cut of $50 per week in 2027-28. Does that mean that the cost of living is solved? Of course it doesn't. You also need all the other measures, including higher wages and what we have done to bring inflation down. You need all of that to be able to make sure you're looking after people. But what is there up in lights is that those opposite oppose every single one of those measures—absolutely everything that would make life easier for people. Those opposite don't just believe that it should be harder for people; they vote that it should be harder for people. So, after this moment, never think that there is an option for those opposite to claim that they're the party of lower taxes, because they will have voted for tax to be higher for every single Australian taxpayer—every one of them.

As the PM said, tax cuts are the only cuts that they don't support. They're the only cuts they don't support. Those opposite have cuts planned, particularly because of their plans for nuclear. You don't get to spend $600 billion without making cuts. We know that they oppose what we did on medicines. They've opposed energy bill relief. They've opposed higher wages. They've opposed cheaper child care. Three times in three years they've opposed three tax cuts, and throughout all of that time this government has had a very simple refrain: people should be able to earn more and keep more of what they earn. No-one on the other side was able to make it to their time defending what is in front of us.

Maybe you want your audition for the front bench. I got to say that there are a good number you are better than. It's a very special front bench that those opposite have provided.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It's not a two-way conversation.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When they've gone off on tangents on other issues, let me just very quickly correct some of the things that they've said that have just been bizarre. They claimed that they will lower immigration at the same time that they voted to make overseas students unlimited. Unlimited was how they voted. They claimed that they're going to put a two-year ban in place that will stop foreign buyers from competing against young Australians for homes when a ban of that nature has already been announced and starts on Tuesday of next week. They claimed to be outraged about 29,000 businesses that have gone insolvent without mentioning that insolvencies as a proportion of companies under the Albanese Labor government is in fact the lowest of any government on record. While they might want to talk about 29,000 businesses across the term, what they don't want to mention is 25,000 new companies registered every single month, which makes the average monthly new company registrations higher under this government than under any other government on record. For every single metric that those opposite put out, every principle they claim they believe in, they vote the opposite way. I'd love to understand how you're meant to help with the cost of living by making taxes higher, wages lower and getting rid of cost-of-living relief.

Let's not forget that someone kept telling me that the best guide to future actions is past performance. The best guide to future actions is past performance, and the Liberal Party has been fundamentally a party that has decided, under the leadership of this Leader of the Opposition and this shadow Treasurer, it's so committed to saying no to everything that it will say no to tax cuts, no to wage rises and no to cost-of-living relief. People know that when the Leader of the Opposition cuts, they will pay. That is what people know. People know that he wants to cut wages, because the opposition kept wages flatlining, and everything we've done to get wages moving in this country, those opposite have opposed. When he launches those wage cuts, people will pay for them.

We've made prescription medicines cheaper, getting them down to the prices they were in 2004. Yet, every time we've acted on cheaper medicines, those opposite have opposed us. Whenever they see something that will help Australians, those opposite have been absolutely determined to oppose it—every single measure. Those opposite are absolutely committed to higher taxes, lower wages and getting rid of cost-of-living relief. You don't have to believe their interviews or their rhetoric; you just have to look at how they voted.

Up until now, we haven't had a vote in this parliament where they've actually gone through with their rhetoric and voted for higher taxes. Here's an opportunity for all those on the back bench, for all those on the front bench, for all those people—and I don't know who you are—who give the background comments to the papers about how much they hate the economic decisions that are being made by their leadership group. I don't know what level of consultation happened before the opposition announced they were going to oppose the tax cuts. I don't know what level of consultation happened, but I do know this: in the vote in a couple of minutes time, because you keep boasting to us that in your party you can vote your own way, you're about to own this vote. You're about to be in a situation where, for every elector, you either support them getting a tax cut or you don't. It will be on the Hansard record. It's a vote you'll never be able to walk away from. You can't blame the leadership, because you keep telling us you can vote whichever way you want. My simple call to every member of this parliament is, if you believe there should be a tax cut for every Australian, then vote for this bill. If you believe in higher taxes, then vote no and own the consequences.

I move:

That the question be now put.

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

The question before the House is that the question be put.

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

The question is that the bill be read a second time.