Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

The coalition is correct to point out the lunacy of Treasurer Jim Chalmers's comments that he may cut infrastructure funding to fight inflation. The best way to fix inflation is to increase productivity, including through productive infrastructure and productive capacity. In fact, the best way to fix inflation is to make sure it doesn't happen in the first place. That means stopping the Reserve Bank from creating $500 billion out of thin air and dropping it from helicopters as they did for Scott Morrison in the response to COVID. Never again. That means stopping the record level of net immigration, estimated at 500,000 this year—half a million! That means pulling back on the 2.3 million visa holders in the country right now who are adding pressure to the housing crisis, driving up demand, driving rentals up and driving inflation.

To the Treasurer, if you're looking for spending cuts to fight inflation, look at subsidies. Australian federal and state governments are still handing out $10 billion in subsidies per quarter—$4 billion more than before COVID. Treasurer, if you really want to cut some infrastructure to fight inflation, cut any money you are putting toward wind, solar, batteries and pumped hydro, like Snowy 2.0. That's the dog in New South Wales, by the way. That will have a double positive effect, taking the heat out of house construction prices and dropping power prices, which contribute to almost every other product in the country.

Let's get serious about fighting inflation. Here's how you do it: cut immigration; ditch the United Nations net zero pipedream; build productive capacity and productive infrastructure, like ports, dams, railways and power stations; and don't create inflation in the first place, printing money out of thin air in electronic journal entries as the Reserve Bank has admitted. Get back to sound basics that enable the productive capacity of Australians to prosper.