Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today, I would like to stand to join the nation, my state of South Australia and the Commonwealth in congratulating His Majesty King Charles III on his coronation, which took place over the weekend. Like so many Australians, I was glued to the TV on Saturday night. It was a momentous and historic occasion, particularly for the majority of us Australians who have only ever lived under the incredible reign of Queen Elizabeth II. The age-old traditions at the heart of the coronation ceremony allowed us not only to look into history and see what had gone before but also to watch modern history play out with the beginning of a new reign, under King Charles and his family. At the heart of the moment, in terms of its impact on those who watched it around the world, there was, I believe, a resonating feeling of great celebration. For 73 years, King Charles, as Prince Charles, had lived as heir to the throne in preparation for the day that he would become King. The world knows King Charles, and I think we can have great confidence in the King because of his dedication to the nation and the Commonwealth throughout his time as heir to the throne.

Australians can also have great confidence in the affinity that King Charles has with our country. He has been to our shores no less than 16 times throughout his life so far. King Charles has demonstrated an extraordinary and deep appreciation of the culture, the people and the environment of this country. In 2018, I had the great pleasure of meeting King Charles, who was then Prince Charles, when I was the Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources. I was able to join him in the Daintree at Mossman Gorge to conduct a roundtable on forestry, where King Charles demonstrated his extraordinary understanding of environmental conservation and rainforest and forest sustainability. I think that experience was absolutely invaluable for all of us who had the opportunity to be there. So it was a very positive moment of celebration for Australia and the Commonwealth as we watched his coronation on Saturday night. I'm sure that, for many in Australia, it was a welcome distraction for those hardworking families who are under significant pressure at the moment, with the greatest pressure no doubt being the cost-of-living pressures that are currently impacting Australian households. It was great to start the week with such a positive celebration because I'm not sure there will be many struggling, hardworking Australians who would be celebrating after last night's budget was handed down.

The great challenge for Australia going forward, as has been reiterated time and time again by the shadow Treasurer, is that last night Australians were looking for cost-of-living relief in a budget that was not going to be adding to the pressure of their lives. Instead, last night, we got a big-spending, big-taxing Labor budget. Labor seem to think that they can spend their way out of this cost-of-living crisis. The message to them is: 'It's never worked before, so why would you think it's going to work this time?' This budget doesn't do anything to help hardworking Australian families. We needed a budget that was going to address the biggest issue, and that is reducing inflation. It needed to rein in spending and combat the cost-of-living crisis facing all Australians. Instead, we find that Australian families on average will be $25,000 worse off every year under this Labor government. This government went to the election with the Prime Minister making so many promises to the Australian public. The mechanism through which he could have delivered those promises to Australians about cost of living—cheaper electricity and lower mortgages—was their much-awaited budget last night. Instead of confirming that the Prime Minister and his government would deliver on their election promises, what the budget did last night was just confirm that these are all going to be broken promises.

When you look at the cost measures across the board, there is so little in here. Despite a substantial investment in energy prices for low-income Australians, low-income Australian are still going to be paying almost $500 a year more on their energy bills. What happened to the $275 headline figure that Australians were going to have off the bottom of their energy bills that seems to be no longer a commitment of this government?

So, despite the commitments around the emergency relief that we were going to be seeing in this budget, I think this budget has to be classically put down as one of the greatest disappointments of all time. When it comes to my portfolio responsibilities, probably the saddest omission from the budget last night is that the drover's dog—he's a very clever dog; he knows lots of things and he could have predicted a budget surplus—also knows that cost-of-living pressures are having a significant impact on the lives of all Australians.

We know, from research that we've received, that cost-of-living pressures are the single biggest issue impacting Australians' mental health right now. We did not see anything in the budget last night that acknowledged that mental health pressures are so severe and are increasing in Australia. Peak bodies have recently released information that supports this. Lifeline has reported an 80 per cent increase in calls relating to cost of living. Headspace Australia's recent national survey identified cost of living as one of the top three issues facing young people. And a recent ReachOut survey found that more than 50 per cent of young people in Australia are stressed out by the cost of living.

Minister Butler had a round table earlier this year following his disastrous decision to cut the number of Medicare subsidised mental health sessions from 20 to 10,with the intention of finding out from the sector about ways in which we could make sure that we support the mental health of Australians. That round table was in January. We have not heard anything from this government or this minister about implementing anything to improve Australians' access to mental health supports, which is exacerbated by the fact that we are in these extraordinarily challenging times. There has been complete radio silence about an issue that has been so strongly felt by so many Australians. The minister could not possibly have missed the fact that Australians who were relying on those additional 10 Medicare subsidised mental health sessions have been calling out for him to explain the reason they need the additional supports.

So, instead of seeing the government last night admit to what has clearly been a bad policy decision, a fundamental mistake in health policy, we saw them double down on it and refuse to acknowledge it and make those changes. I think Australians who are currently suffering from moderate to extreme mental health ill health who were looking to get access to those additional sessions again would have been extremely disappointed that last night there was nothing in the budget to support them.

In summary, last night's budget was big on aspiration, which is something this government is particularly good at, but it was really light on the detail, which is, once again, something that has proven to be somewhat of a track record of this government. Once again, the lack of detail leaves us not really knowing what the intention of this government is in relation to helping Australians out with their cost of living. We can only assume from this big-spending, high-taxing budget that this government either doesn't care or doesn't understand that the most important thing they can do to make sure Australian families are getting the cost-of-living relief that they need and that they were promised is to actually address inflation, because it is inflation that is the thief in the night. Inflation is the thing that steals your opportunities through cost of living. It is the thief in the night that steals your qualify of life.