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

Over the last 2½ years, this government has spent almost all its time on being the best government for vested interests that it could be. I mean that in terms of shovelling money out the door to its mates but also calibrating the policies and laws of the nation to suit the narrow, vested interests of the union movement, the super funds and a few other gilded fellow travellers. The problem with this agenda, of course, is that the people that miss out here are the Australian people. They pay the price for this approach because, when the government is so focused on what's important to the unions, the CFMEU and co, then it runs out of time to solve the great problems of today like inflation and housing.

Just when you think that this government for vested interests couldn't get any better at being the government for vested interests, it cooks up this plan called a future made in Australia, which should be called 'the future of rent-seeking and bloodsucking in Australia'. There will be a cavalcade of lobbyists coming down here, on the road from Sydney, with their hands out to take taxpayer funds to use in their businesses which are already profitable and are in no need of a handout. If the government were serious about trying to improve the competitive dynamics of this economy it would be cutting taxes, deregulating and looking to provide policies like accelerated depreciation. That is the way to improve the competitive dynamics of the economy. But, instead of doing that, all it has done is increase the regulatory burden and increase taxes. It is no wonder that small business is dying under this government.

Yet it's come up with the policy of the ultimate cronyism: the Future Made in Australia, with $23 billion of taxpayers' funds to be given to their mates and other various fellow travellers. The Productivity Commission chair, Danielle Wood, has said:

We risk creating a class of businesses that is reliant on … subsidies …

That also means we're going to give taxpayer funds to these bloodsuckers, and they don't need it.

The prior chair of the PC, the Productivity Commission, has lectured the Treasurer and told him that he is engaging in rent-seeking. Dr Chalmers has had a good run. He's been attacked by his hand-picked chairs of the Productivity Commission and the Reserve Bank in the last couple of weeks, so it is going well for Dr Chalmers! He's a genius!

Of course, with this policy of institutionalised rent-seeking and bloodsucking, we will see, as we've already seen through the Senate committee submissions, every single organisation in the country come to Canberra with its hand out. We've seen, through the submissions, the gas companies, the caravan companies, chocolate companies—seriously! This is not a country where the government pays you to do business. This is an economy where you are supposed to be able to stand on your own two feet, and that is what millions of Australian small businesses do every single day. They hate the idea of corporate largesse being given out to Labor's mates in the unions and to other fellow travellers. This idea of a future made in Australia is very dangerous.

I would have thought that the government would have learnt from their boondoggle disasters like the Reconstruction Fund. I'm still not sure what we're actually reconstructing from, but we've got a massive reconstruction fund which spends money on nothing other than its own board members. Then of course we've got the mother of them all: the Housing Australia Future Fund, which is about to try and partner with the Cbus Super fund, which has got three CFMEU trustees on its board. The Labor Party says it's desperate to put the CFMEU into administration, but it couldn't give a rat's about the Cbus fund working with the Housing Australia Future Fund, which is going to receive taxpayers' funds. This is a bizarre situation that we are in, where the government for vested interests runs the policy and the money for their mates. This is institutionalising cronyism.

I am not surprised at how angry small-business people in our country are about how bad this government is with its priorities. It is disgusting. That is why we are against the Future Made in Australia.