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

The Australian people are asking themselves, 'Why has my life become so much harder under this government?' It's a fair question to ask. The answer is that the government has spent three years doing two things: designing policies and laws which support the benefactors, the mates, the chums of the government—their fellow travellers—and spending the last part of this term working out how they can funnel cash to their favourite friends through an elaborate set of laws principally known as the Future Made in Australia but not exclusive to that point.

Now, the first part of this term saw, in particular, Minister Jones working out how he could work with the industrial relations minister to design policies and schemes that would support the union movement but also the super funds. And so we have seen pattern bargaining. We have seen same job same pay. We have seen the abolition, the death of casual working in this country. This is all designed to institute a scheme where the unions can clip a ticket. They can clip a ticket through more subscriptions to pay the union bosses, because they hate small business. They always have. Hating small business is in their DNA. And so they've spent the bulk of the time working out how they can lock in laws which kill small business and pay off the people that run their internal elections, that turn up on polling day and that fund their campaigns. That has been the focus of this government. As I say, pattern bargaining, the end of small business, same job same pay—that's in the industrial relations space.

Then you have the superannuation space. There is more and more money going to the super funds and a deathly silence about scandals. We see today that the Treasurer, Dr Chalmers, has decided that he would actually agree with the Clerk of the Senate's advice that he must comply with the Senate's orders to provide documents pertaining to the Cbus super fund. Dr Chalmers has been a bit reticent here to engage with the Senate's orders. Maybe because his mentor and great friend, Mr Wayne Swan, is a chair of that fund. Maybe it is because Mr Swan is also the president of the Labor Party. These are questions for the ages, which we won't have answers for right now. But I think it's pretty clear that this is more evidence of the government being the government for vested interests. If this were a scandal at a bank or a supermarket—if the bank hadn't paid its bills or the supermarket were in bed with a corrupt organisation—the government would be all over it like a rash. But they are not. Even though Cbus has not paid its insurance claims and even though Cbus has paid millions of dollars to the CFMEU, you hear crickets—not even a bogong moth—nothing. But if it were a bank or a supermarket, it'd be all you'd hear about.

So the protection racket is not just about favourable policy for their mates; it's also about a code of silence for those that break our laws. When the Nine newspapers broke the story about the CFMEU's latest antics, it was like shock, horror on the government benches. Who knew? Who knew these guys were bad? I think the Australian people are starting to see it for what it is. The government has had no time to solve the problems of today on inflation and housing because it spends all its time thinking about its mates, its best friends. That is what the Future Made in Australia plan is all about. It's another program of largesse, just like the Housing Australia Future Fund and the Reconstruction Fund. All these funds support the overall direction of this government, which is a government for vested interests. They have no time to solve the great challenges of today, which is why small business is dying. It's why inflation is out of control and why housing is unbearable in this country.