Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

While some might say the government is still in its honeymoon period, it has broken more promises than any newlywed in history. It's been only 10 months since the election, and I have a list of 10 broken promises from this government, one for each month in government. They're not little promises, either; they're not small ones, but they were all sweet nothings that the Labor Party whispered to the Australian people over a year ago, during the election campaign, to reassure them that it would deliver for them. Instead, the Australian people have been completely dudded and these promises have been completely broken.

At the top of the list is the oft-repeated promise to cut people's power bills by $275 a year. In fact, the now Prime Minister made that promise 97 times before the election. Ninety-seven times Anthony Albanese said to the Australian people that he would cut power bills by $275. Guess how many times he's repeated that promise since the election: zero, nada, zilch. He doesn't mention it anymore. It was a sweet nothing said before the Australian people walked down the aisle with the Australian Labor Party. Once the vows were said and the ring was on the finger, he completely forgot about it, as if he'd never said it before. Anyone who's opened up a power bill in recent months knows that they certainly haven't gone down by $275. My power bill hasn't. It's skyrocketed up, in the opposite direction, and now the Labor Party won't even give an inch of support to the fact that they made this promise.

The Labor Party also said there will be no changes to superannuation. The Prime Minister said that on radio many times. He said he had no plans. He said on 31 January last year, 'We have not planned for changes on superannuation.' In the last two weeks we've seen a doubling of superannuation tax rates for—we now know, thanks only to the Senate yesterday—10 per cent of Australians.

The now Prime Minister also said that he would increase real wages for the Australian people. In fact, a couple of weeks ago it was confirmed that we've had the biggest reduction in real wages in recorded history—another broken promise from this Prime Minister. We had a promise that there would be no increase in the tax burden. As I said, that has already been breached by the superannuation promise. We've also had the Treasurer out there in the last couple of weeks saying that he might tax the family home, too. He hasn't ruled that out of contention.

Who knows! Who could trust what you say here today, when you're definitely not keeping up with what you said last year.

The Australian Labor Party also promised that people's franking credits wouldn't be touched. Remember that? They wouldn't be touched. We learnt this week that they're back on the agenda to be taxed. When the Australian people elected the Labor Party last year, they thought they were getting Anthony Albanese as Prime Minister. They're actually getting Bill Shorten. All of these policies are what Bill Shorten took to the 2019 election. The Labor Party tried to drop and hide for the 2022 election, but Bill Shorten is back. He is back with his agenda of taxing superannuation and taxing franking credits, and, we expect, probably taxing the family home and investment properties in the future as well, like the Labor Party wanted to do in 2019, which was rejected.

The Labor Party also said there would be no return to industry-wide bargaining. That was removed late last year—another promise broken just before Christmas. They promised wage rises for aged-care workers. Like the rest of us, they're seeing their real wages go down. Mr Albanese promised that he would deliver cheaper mortgages for the Australian people. He promised cheaper mortgages, and then today, just in the last couple of hours, we saw the tenth increase in interest rates—nine on this government's watch. We've seen nine interest rate increases in the space of 10 months from this government, after promises of cheaper mortgages. Finally, he promised that Australian families would be better off. Clearly, with rising interest rates, rising power prices and increasing taxes, Australian families are not better off under this government. No-one could make that claim.

My opponents here will get up and say: 'There were all these problems. We've had the Ukraine war and all these things.' Guess when Ukraine was invaded: February last year, three months before the election. It happened then. Guess when inflation started peaking: about 18 months ago. He should have known that then. The Labor Party knew they were telling fibs to the Australian people a year ago. They tried to hide it. It's been exposed. Now they have a litany of broken promises that are going to be held around their necks until the next election, in two years, when the Australian people have their say on how they think broken promises should be treated.