Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Hansard source

It tells you a lot that, when a government minister stands to defend the answers given in question time, they spend most of the time speaking about the opposition. I'd suggest that's a bad sign for the government.

The other bad sign for the government is that the government so far have very few policies that I can see emerging as their agenda for the next election. All they've done in the past two years has been to feather the nests of their fellow rent seekers and bloodsuckers and all the other fellow travellers that help them with their internal political machine. That's all they've done. It's been a government for vested interests for two years. The big test for this government now is: can it thread together a coherent policy agenda that it can put to the Australian people and that will solve the problems of today, the problems that are facing the people out there, outside this building, such as inflation and housing? As far as I can see, according to the data released today, the problems are getting worse, not better. Inflation is getting worse, not better. You can talk about wages growth, but what people are really interested in is real wages growth. While inflation is eating the wages of workers, Labor have very little to say.

I want to comment on the question that I asked Senator Gallagher today about housing. Unfortunately, we are going backwards on housing.