Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's always entertaining following Senator Sheldon. At least he made an attempt to defend this government's record. I'll give you that, Senator Sheldon. You made an attempt. Of course, what you read out was the laundry list that the union movement gave you before you got into government, but we'll put that to one side and we'll talk about the budget from last night, a budget that has disappeared without a trace.

I've been around this building in one capacity or another for quite a long time, and I have never seen a budget go down like a lead balloon in quite the way the Labor budget from yesterday evening did. There's the slogan about tax cuts. Clearly the Treasurer wanted a front-page headline with the words 'tax cuts'. He didn't care how small it was. He didn't care if it was 70 cents a day. While, on the other hand, inflation under this Labor government eats that up literally in minutes.

Inflation under this government has made every Australian family worse off, not by 70 cents a day but by tens of thousands of dollars over the course of this government, whether it's electricity bills, where the Labor Party's renewables-only policy has pushed up prices by thousands; whether it's mortgages, where inflation has caused interest rate increases under this Labor government that have put tens of thousands of dollars onto everyday Australians' mortgages; or it's the 20,000 small businesses that have gone into administration under this Labor government. Those small businesses are facing the pressure of high interest rates, high supply costs and the inability to pass those costs on to their consumers and, at the same time, are facing the increasing involvement of the union movement, which is imposing itself on workplaces where there was no desire to have the union involved. You've got to remember, as this Labor government is out there shelling for the union movement, that the union movement represents less than one in 10 private sector workers. Unions do not represent workers. They represent a tiny cadre of workers in this country, and this Labor government is merely here to support those unions.

As this government goes down like a lead balloon, let's look at what wasn't in the budget. What was completely absent from the budget? Any mention of the importance of the North West Shelf decision. In fact, while the budget was being delivered, Tanya Plibersek again kicked the can down the road for a decision on the extension of the North West Shelf project. Everyone knows the North West Shelf project will be extended, but Western Australia will be at a near-term gas supply risk if that project is not extended. This is blocking $30 billion worth of investment. Once again, this is not a new—