Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Having looked through the budget documents last night, in looking through budget paper 2 and the glossies, it's very strange that the missing piece here is a plan to promote private investment and a plan to promote employment. Of course we want to see policies where large and small businesses can look to employ more Australians, but that's missing. It's not the centrepiece of the budget, and I think that speaks volumes of this government's distorted priorities—the government for vested interests which we have now in Australia.

Of course, one of the great contradictions here is one of the centrepieces of the budget, which is this housing compact or housing accord. Effectively—and this is the government speaking—we want to see the big super funds owning the houses, using peoples super, but we don't want to see individuals using their own super to have a house. It's a very distorted and twisted way of looking at the world, but when you are run by vested interests and you conduct most of the business of the government in favour of vested interests—class-action law firms, unions and super funds—I guess it's no surprise.

So it's a very regrettable outcome here and, to be honest, there's not much detail about how this money will be spent. If you go through budget paper 2, and I'm sure many people will do that, you can't find where the $140 million will be going, other than being sent off to the NHFIC. I imagine it's to fund some sort of study or some kind of examination of how more money could be extracted, perhaps for tax benefit purposes.