David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Wong) to questions asked by Senators Birmingham and Hume relating to the economy.

The headlines in the papers today give us an indication of what is happening in this country despite the rhetoric of the Albanese government—headlines such as 'Labor presiding over longest run of negative GDP per capita since 1970s'. Those opposite in the Albanese government would have you believe that the country is better off since they came to government. That's their rhetoric. But what is the reality? The reality, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the National Accounts figures is that, quarter after quarter, there have been decreases in GDP, gross domestic product, per capita for a number of times in a row, six, that we have not seen since the 1970s.

The government opposite says that some of the cost-of-living subsidies, which are short-term measures and actually increase spending from the government, putting pressures on inflation, and makes the problem worse in the long run, is having an impact on the people of Australia—that longer term trajectory that we're on. The lived experience of Australian families, Australian individuals and Australian businesses is that each dollar they have now buys less. Every time a bill comes in, whether for insurance or for, particularly, energy, they pay more. You have to compare the rhetoric of those opposite, the Albanese government, with the reality.

Mr Bowen, Mr Albanese and Labor senators in this place have a rhetoric, which they repeat ad nauseam to the Australian people that the energy transition that this government is implementing is going to lead to lower prices and cleaner energy. But the reality is that the leader in that transition, my home state of South Australia—with up to 70 per cent penetration of variable renewable energy—pays the nation's highest electricity prices at 45 cents per kilowatt hour. That's in stark contrast to many nations overseas that are paying in the order of 13 to 14 cents per kilowatt hour. The reality is that in Europe we see nations such as Germany, which has long been held out as an exemplar by the Albanese Labor government as the sort of nation that we should follow, where the government has just collapsed. In large part, according to analysts, it was because of the debate over the transition and the fact that the cost of all of their transition to renewable energy has actually led to the three parties splintering because of a reduction in confidence in that nation.

The reality doesn't just affect people at a personal level. The rhetoric here from the Albanese government is that they are spending more on defence. The reality, as has come out during estimates and various reports in the media over the last few weeks, is that there is not enough money to fund the items that even the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Defence, Mr Marles said only a few months ago were a high priority for Australia's national defence.

So JP9102, the project to have sovereign satellite communications—military grade communications—which Defence has indicated in their arguments underpinned so many of our defence capabilities, went from being a high priority just a few months ago to, after significant questioning during estimates, the Department of Defence admitting, 'When we prioritised, it didn't make the cut.' Read: there's not enough money to actually pay for the things that Defence sees as a high priority and that even this government said was a high priority.

At a time when the government is saying that they care about quality of life, the cost of living and jobs for people, the rhetoric and the ideology that is driving them is actually driving up prices, driving down the quality of living and driving down the available funding for the Department of Defence, which weakens the security of Australia. We see shipbuilding programs cut, satellite programs cut, and maintenance decreasing on vessels that we need for the security of this nation. The Australian people will soon have a choice: do they want to continue on this trajectory which is driven by ideology and rhetoric, or do they want to change to a government that has a track record of building a strong economy and defence on facts?