James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister is out of touch. Since the Prime Minister announced the referendum date last Wednesday, he has toured around Australia desperately trying to sell his divisive Canberra Voice. While the Prime Minister and the 'yes' campaign are jetting around on their free Qantas flights with Alan Joyce, what the Prime Minister is not talking about are the issues that really matter to Australians. The Prime Minister is not talking about the cost of fuel and groceries. He is not talking about the spiralling cost of housing and rental prices. He is not talking about how unemployment is beginning to tick up across the country. He is certainly not talking about the ridiculous cost of Qantas's air flights. He is not talking about energy prices skyrocketing, hurting our families and small businesses. And today there are hundreds of pharmacists on the lawn of Parliament House at this very moment campaigning against this government's plan to cut pharmacies off at the knees by rushing through 60-day dispensing. He is not talking about them and he is not talking to them.

But here is the difference: the coalition is actually talking about what matters to Australians. Though the government may be pressing the pause button on all legislation coming out of the ministerial wing of this building, there is no pause button on the hurt and the struggle that Australians are facing in this cost-of-living crisis. The Australian families sitting around the dinner tables struggling to make ends meet do not want a government that tells them they are racist if they don't support the Voice. They want a government that will fight the cost-of-living crisis, that will fight the housing crisis and that will fight the energy crisis head-on, and get our country back on track. That is the difference between the coalition and Labor: the coalition will fight on the issues that actually matter to Australians, whereas the Labor Party will fight only for issues that matter to the Labor Party.