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

I move:

That the Senate notes Labor's high taxing, high spending 2024-25 Budget will make the lives of Australians harder by putting further pressure on inflation and keeping interest rates higher for longer.

We are now seeing the flow-on effects of Labor's high-spending, high-taxing budget that was brought down earlier this year, and the effects upon the Australian people are quite devastating. I want to read some statistics. These are the impacts of inflation that are flowing through our economy. Since the last election, the cost of health care has gone up 10.5 per cent, the cost of education has gone up 11.2 per cent, the cost of food has gone up 12.3 per cent and the cost of housing has gone up 13.1 per cent. I'll be saying something further about housing shortly. Rent has gone up 16.3 per cent—again, I'll be providing some further details in that regard shortly. Finance and insurance have gone up 17.3 percent. The price of gas, in a country which is blessed with plentiful supplies—if we could only get it to market—has gone up 33.8 per cent since the last election. These numbers are quite devastating and they have real-world impacts upon my constituents in the state of Queensland who are doing it tough, doing it really tough, in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. These consequences are flowing from a big taxing, big spending government and that is what the final budget outcome that has just been released has indicated. Compared to before the election, Labor has raised $104 billion in additional income—that is, $104 billion in additional taxes was raised by the Albanese Labor government since the last election—and that includes $43 billion of higher taxes on households and $54 billion of higher taxes on businesses contributing to that $104 billion figure.

The other question raised is: how is it sustainable? Even with those high revenue numbers in additional tax, spending is growing faster as a percentage of GDP than taxes. So even with an extra $104 billion of receipts, including an extra $43 billion in household taxes and an extra $54 billion in business taxes, the government is spending at an even faster rate than it is raising the additional taxes, with spending growing faster as a percentage of GDP than tax receipts. Listen to these figures: as a percentage of GDP in real terms, spending has grown by 2.9 per cent compared to tax receipts at 0.2 per cent of GDP. Taxes are increasing on both households and businesses but, at the same time, spending is increasing even further. It is not sustainable. Let's be honest here. The government's budget is only supported by record-high commodity prices. When those commodity prices weaken and those tax receipts, especially corporate tax receipts, start to decrease, the spending is locked in and that means a structural deficit in the medium to longer term and that is gravely concerning, extremely concerning.

I want to talk about the cost of rents. Since the last election, national median weekly rents have increased by 23 per cent from $512 to $632 a week. That equates to an extra $6,240 a year. Since the last election, just to pay your rent is now an extra $6,240 a year. The impact of the government policies—higher interest rates, higher taxing—is $6,240 a year in extra rent.

My office is located in the outer urban area in Queensland, in a place called Springfield, which is in the Ipswich City Council area. I want to talk to you about the increase in rents in my local area. This is based on research I got the Parliamentary Library to do and it is quite staggering. There are a lot of battlers who live in my region of Ipswich doing it tough in the cost-of-living crisis, so I did some research to see how much the rent has increased in the greater Ipswich region. For a one-bedroom flat in Ipswich, the cost of renting that in June 2022 was $265 a week but that has now increased in the space of two years to $350 a week, an increase of $85 a week, 14.9 per cent, or $4,420 a year extra in rent. The rent for a basic minimal standard of living, a one-bedroom flat in my area of Ipswich where my office is located, increased by $4,420 in the two years since the last election. That's a staggering increase. Senator Roberts knows the area of Ipswich very well, and he'll know the demographics of that area. There are a lot of battlers. If you have a one-bedroom flat in Ipswich, you are a battler and the property you rent has gone up by $4,420 a year. Looking down these figures, a two-bedroom apartment's cost per year has gone up by $3,640. A three-bedroom apartment has gone up $5,200. A two-bedroom house has gone up $5,200.

If you have a larger family, for a three-bedroom house in Ipswich the average rent has gone up by $5,720 a year. For an average three-bedroom house in my area of Ipswich, where my office is located, rent has gone up by $5,720 a year. That is an astronomical amount. A four-bedroom house has gone up by the same amount. For a three-bedroom townhouse the cost to rent over the year has gone up by $130 a week. That's an average change of 16.2 per cent, which is $6,760. There were 195 tenancies for a three-bedroom townhouse in the Ipswich and Somerset local government authority region commencing on the June quarter 2024. Those tenants, those families, will be $6,760, after tax, worse off as a result of the increase in those rents. These are astronomical figures.

In the Somerset local government authority region, which is also in the federal seat of Blair and which I am duty senator for, the cost of the rent for a three-bedroom house has gone up by $3,640 a year. This is after-tax income. The cost of a four-bedroom house has gone up by $6,760 a year in rent. These are absolutely astronomical figures and are deeply concerning. We have people in my Ipswich region who are living in parks because they can't afford to pay these increases in rent, which, as I've outlined, are up to $6,760 a year greater than what they were.

Things are bad enough as they are. We have to ask ourselves the question: how much worse will they be if the Labor government after the next election are a minority government and then effectively only hold government with the support of the Greens? How much worse would they be? I have previously spoken in this place with respect to the spending ideas which the Greens have which are simply on another planet—absolutely bonkers. The Greens' proposals, to use a detailed economic term, are bonkers! The Greens' spending ideas are absolutely off the planet.

We are actually seeing in the context of the Queensland state election at the moment what the Greens' ideas are with respect to spending in my home state of Queensland. I live in a beautiful part of the world, in Brisbane, where we have one of the oldest golf clubs, the Brisbane Golf Club. It was established some 128 years ago. The Greens actually propose to nationalise, confiscate and appropriate this golf club. That is what the Greens are taking to the next election. The Greens want to appropriate, confiscate and nationalise the Brisbane Golf Club. It's like Venezuela. This is a golf club with 1,600 members and a history going back 128 years. They're Australian leaders in terms of supporting women in golf. In fact, they got awarded the 2023 Visionary of the Year golf club award in 2023 from Golf Australia for everything they are doing with respect to promoting the participation of women in golf. The Greens want to nationalise it. They want to appropriate this golf club. I'll quote from the Greens' Venezuelan-like manifesto. This is how they described this golf club with 128 years of history. They said they want to:

Buy back the giant 60ha golf course in Yeerongpilly/Rocklea and establish a 'New Rocks Riverside' public park with outdoor water play and playgrounds, BBQ areas, flood resilience and biodiversity areas …

This is a golf club that's been in existence for over 120 years and has over 1,600 members, and the Greens want to go in there and confiscate it, nationalise it—