Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to start my contribution to this debate by paying tribute to the ABC, which I don't normally do. A couple of weeks ago on their Insiders program, they put up a chart that I think should be ingrained into the memory of all political leaders in this country. It is a shocking chart. It showed the difference in relative living standards between the United States and Australia over the past two years. The chart started in the first quarter of 2022, which was the last full quarter of the last coalition government, and extended through to the first quarter of this year. If you look at the real gross household disposable income per person between our two countries, that graph showed that in the United States the generally accepted figure of living standards had increased by almost four per cent—just over three per cent—over those two years. In Australia, on that measure—a well-accepted measure—living standards in the past two years in Australia have dropped a shocking eight per cent. It is the biggest drop in recorded history for Australia. It is the largest drop by far in the developed world since the end of COVID and there is almost zero discussion about this issue.

What I heard from the government senators in contributions before was: 'We will just throw more money at it—at assistance and what have you.' This is not the point. The point and reason for why our living standards are cratering relative to other countries, declining at a record pace, is because our economy is not functioning. Our productivity is falling and falling at a record rate as well. Our productivity has gone down over six per cent in the two years this government has been in office. That means we have all got a lot less money. If we are producing less for every hour we work, we get less. If we just had the historical average productivity rate for this government over two years, Australians' income levels on average would be $8,000 better off right now. That is the cost of the complete lack of focus from this government on an economic agenda. This week, that graph should be ingrained.

I mean, why are we going so backwards, with all the wealth and resources we have as a nation? We should be trying to answer that question. We should be coming up with solutions. There should be legislation to cut red tape, lower taxes, do something to unleash productivity in this country. Instead, the Prime Minister's only agenda right now is to ban social media for kids under 16. That is the agenda this fortnight going into Christmas. I think that is an issue. There is an issue with bullying and harassment on social media for young children but why is that the centrepiece of this government's bankrupt agenda when our living standards are going down by that much? Why don't they have an answer for the fact Australians feel like they are going backwards, that they are losing confidence that their children will have a better future than they have had? There are no solutions being offered by their political leaders.

Let's take a few examples from recent months of this government that has completely lost the plot when it comes to focusing on the economy. Just the other month, the environment minister blocked a $1 billion goldmine because of a mythical bee. This goldmine is a $1 billion investment during a gold price absolute boom—gold prices have never been higher. It could literally make gold for our country, make wealth and create a thousand jobs but the government blocked this because a fringe Aboriginal group—not the actual Land Council but a fringe Aboriginal group—decided there was a dreaming story they had that involved a mythical bee—not a real bee, a mythical bee. Where are we going as a country and where are our priorities when we can't get those types of jobs created, that kind of wealth going for our country and we make these ridiculous decisions that make the rest of the world laugh?

We also have an energy minister that is not being up-front with the cost of his transition. He glosses over it, saying, 'We are going to transition', yet every time power bills for Australians go up. We were promised a $275 cut in our power bills and they have gone up on average by over $500 since this government has been in power, and still they ignore all the evidence that is emerging around the world that relying heavily on intermittent, unreliable solar and wind power won't cut it. It just increases power prices, reduces reliability—but apart from that, it is bloody fantastic!

This is a government without an economic agenda, and the biggest issue facing the country is how can we reignite the latent potential of our nation with the world's largest coal, gas, uranium, sun and wind resources? We have the land and water; let's use them and make Australians wealthy again.