Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Multicultural Engagement) Share this | Hansard source

What we are seeing from those sitting opposite is a government spending like a drunken sailor. There have been over $6 billion worth of spending announcements in the last week. That's unfair to drunken sailors because, typically, drunken sailors are spending their own money. They are not spending the money of taxpayers; they are spending their own money. But this government are spending taxpayer money or they are borrowing money, and the Australian taxpayers will have to pay the interest on that borrowed money for decades to come. We saw from the current Labor government over $6.7 billion of additional spending announcements in the last week—in one week!

What have we seen since the Albanese Labor government came to power? We have seen $379 billion more in taxes collected under the Albanese Labor government since they came to power and an additional $209 billion in spending. Now, in the short term, when you had iron ore prices at record highs, you could cover that spending. But the problem is—and this has always been the case—over the cycle, commodity prices come down and that's what we are seeing now. Since the start of the year iron ore prices, for example, have come down by nearly 20 per cent. Commodity prices are coming down. That taxation revenue from the iron ore industry, the mining industry et cetera which has propped up the government spending is simply not going to be there at the same levels next year. Who suffers? The Australian people will suffer.

The RBA put out a document earlier this year which talked about the fall in real disposable income. This is the cost-of-living crisis. This is not a senator's document; this is the RBA. The RBA said, 'The rate of real disposable income has declined by 5.5 per cent since early 2022'—the time of the last election—'the largest decrease observed in around three decades.' In 30 years, real household disposable income has fallen by 5.5 per cent, the highest rate in the last three decades.

Question agreed to.