Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today is my first budget day as a senator, and I note it is the third budget of the Albanese Labor government. It is the third budget of this government that has inflicted the cost-of-living crisis that Australian families are struggling through right now. What I had hoped we would see tonight—and this is the view of many I have spoken with, throughout my state of New South Wales—was a budget that was focused on addressing Labor's home-grown cost-of-living crisis. But, instead of addressing the causes of Labor's home-grown inflation, Labor's spending is up by $315 billion. After three Labor budgets, the average Australian household with a mortgage is $35,000 worse off. While immigration continues to soar, Labor isn't delivering enough houses. This third budget does nothing to restore what Labor has cost Australians, and we are all poorer for it.

A budget that begins to repair the massive hit to real disposable incomes that Australian families are experiencing is what we were expecting—as someone earning $100,000 is around $7,000 a year worse off under this government—and a budget that addresses the fact that, since Labor came to power, prices have gone up by 17 per cent. The latest inflation data showed that, under Labor, prices across the board have risen by close to 10 per cent, with the increase even greater for many essential items. Food is up 10 per cent. Housing is up 12 per cent. Gas is up 25 per cent. Electricity is up 18 per cent. Australians are poorer under Labor.

There is a risk that this spending will keep inflation higher for longer. The RBA has indicated this.

While we support any help for families and small businesses with high energy costs, this rebate is, in the words of Taylor Swift, a bandaid on a bullet wound. It doesn't change the fact that Australians still won't see the $275 reduction in their energy bills that the Prime Minister promised before the election. In fact, many Australians would need to see a $1,000 cut in their power bill just to get the promised $275 reduction. It's shameful—absolutely shameful.

It's placing the sole burden of wrestling the economy back under control onto borrowers—onto people who have a mortgage. That's what young Australian families and people with a small business have to wrestle with. It's a story of the struggle that so many Australian families are going through right now. They are expected to do the hard work so that the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, doesn't have to get his hands dirty.

A budget that addresses the housing crisis is also something we didn't get—not just social housing but barriers to private housing being unlocked. We saw a so-called announcement over the weekend from the government about housing that does nothing for the private market whatsoever. There is no hope for young Australians wanting to break into the market, nothing to redirect migration towards the construction that is so badly needed to construct homes of the future and nothing to councils for the small things that really matter in unlocking supply.

This Labor budget fails economic tests. In these uncertain times we needed a budget that got back to basics. That means a budget that restored standards of living by finally addressing inflation and pressures being felt by families at the checkout and with their energy bills; restored prosperity and created opportunity by supporting small businesses and helping young Australians into a home; restored budget discipline and honesty; restrained spending; brought back fiscal guardrails and a tax-to-GDP cap; and delivered a structural surplus, not a windfall surplus. Labor's third budget has failed all these tests.