Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of answers given to questions without notice (1), (2) and (4) asked today.

I know question time was some time ago. The main point I want to make in taking note of these answers is that the budget this week is a budget which has paid off the big unions and the major donors and favourite fellow travellers of the government. When I say that this is a government for vested interests, this is perhaps the best example of it. You see nothing for small business. You see efforts to reintroduce unionisation at universities, and, of course, you see the endless gravy train of more and more super for their best friends at the super funds.

This is part of a classic Labor approach to budget management. You've seen the essential desire of the government to increase taxation because spending is so high. While we see a surplus this year, we see deficits as far as the eye can see in the out years of the budget. So the government has made a conscious decision to spend up big over the course of these forward estimates. Of course, the people who will pay the bill are the people of Australia because the government has no money of its own. The only money the government has is the taxation it levies on its citizens.

We've already seen new taxes on superannuation and franking credits. We've also seen higher taxes in the personal income tax space. Who would have thought when we started this parliament almost two years ago that we would reinsert a tax bracket of 37c? We've gone back to the future. Who could have believed that? The reality is that the reinsertion of the 37c threshold means that bracket creep is back. Bracket creep is now a permanent feature of the Australian tax system. That is going to be one of the legacies of this bad government. We have gone back to the future, in a DeLorean perhaps, to a system where you have a 37c threshold and, if you do an extra shift or if you do a second job, you are on the hook for more tax. Bracket creep is back. That is going to be one of the shocking economic legacies of this government, which has unwound one of the very few reforms of the past few years. We are living in an era where governments have very low ambition. One of the only reforms to the tax system in recent years was the removal of that tax threshold, and now it is back. So you see more taxes to pay for the big spending.

You also see an obsession with these boondoggle schemes and funds: the National Reconstruction Fund, the Housing Australia Future Fund and now the made in Australia fund. All of these funds are chock full of union people—on their boards—so they can pay off, in financial terms, their favoured vested interests. It's a government for vested interests in terms of policy, and a government for vested interests in terms of the payment of taxpayer funds to special interests. That is the reality of this budget.

The other big failure is housing. It's hugely disappointing. We see pages and pages in Budget Paper No. 1 on Labor's housing policy. What is the centrepiece of Labor's housing policy? The centrepiece is this hilarious commitment to 1.2 million new houses, a commitment which has been laughed at by the Premier of New South Wales, Chris Minns, who says that New South Wales will never meet its allocation of houses. Furthermore, Budget Paper No. 1 says clearly that the government will never meet the target of 1.2 million new houses. This is a huge fail on supply, and their only policy on the demand side is a policy called Help to Buy, a friendless scheme already run by the states and territories that no-one wants. The reason no-one wants it is that people don't want the government to own their house. No-one wants to co-own their house with the government. That is not the Australian way. That is not the Australian dream. The Labor Party is putting the Australian dream to death, as it governs for its special interests. It is a government for vested interests, which is killing the Australian dream.

Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Isn't it interesting when those opposite get the chance to talk about our budget, because we start to learn a little bit about what they have planned for Australians. Our budget, as you are aware, Madam Acting Deputy President Polley, and as many Australians are aware, was focused squarely on cost of living as a priority for the economic times but also on delivering an economy for the future. That's why we are delivering a tax cut for every Australian. We made sure that we were able to deliver a tax cut for every taxpayer out there. On top of the tax cuts that were already committed to, we made sure that there would be tax cuts for the lowest-paid workers.

It's interesting when you hear those opposite talk about these tax cuts or about changes to the tax system that they're not quite able to say—they don't quite have the guts to—whether they would change these tax cuts if they were elected. They're not able to say that because we know that they will. We know that they want to rip those tax cuts away from low-paid workers, and they would if they had the chance. But our government is delivering those tax cuts on 1 July, and we're very excited to make sure that every taxpayer in regional Queensland, across Queensland, gets the tax cut that they deserve.

We're also making sure that we can deliver an economy for the future. That means delivering a future made in Australia—more manufacturing jobs all over Australia, particularly in our regions. When we talked about this commitment, when we talked about manufacturing, those opposite were very quick to say that they wouldn't be supporting a future made in Australia. Imagine saying you don't want to support more things being made here by Aussie workers! We know that this is an important policy for the future, and that's why we're delivering it. We know that it's important for manufacturing workers right now, but we also know that it's important for those manufacturing workers of the future that we are skilling up. Those opposite would tell those workers that they don't have a job here in Australia, that they would send their job overseas, because they don't support our plan to make more things here in Australia.

Of course, you've heard those opposite talk about housing and our housing plan. What Senator Bragg did not mention in his criticisms of our plan is the $32 billion of investment that we are putting behind our commitment to build more homes in Australia. We are making sure that we're doing that in conjunction with the states. It is ludicrous to hear from those opposite any criticism of our plan to build housing when, after 10 years, they refused to hand over any money for social housing, any money for homelessness or any money to support the building of homes that are so drastically needed, particularly in regional areas. It's interesting: I want to know which parts of this housing plan those opposite oppose. Do they oppose the $1 billion that we are setting aside to build more homes for women and children fleeing domestic violence? Is that the bit that they would cut? Do they oppose programs like the regional first home buyers grant, a program that is rolling out homes in regional Queensland right now? Is that what they are against? Do they oppose us skilling up construction workers to make sure that we have people out there who are able to build homes right now and into the future? Are those the jobs that they would cut?

When it comes to the most important issues facing Australians right now, we know that energy prices are putting pressure on households, so we are delivering relief through our energy relief package—$300 for every household. If you're in Queensland, we've managed to keep those assets in public hands, so you will get an even bigger package because the state government is delivering relief and the Australian government is too. When it comes to energy prices, we know that those opposite voted against our package the last time we put it through this place. We know that, given the chance, they'll probably vote against it again. We know that they've criticised it one day and flip-flopped and supported it the other. They want higher electricity prices. They literally voted in this chamber to have higher electricity prices—to make prices higher for people doing it tough. And they want less electricity in the market because they oppose renewable energy. On this side of the chamber, we're for more energy into the system and lower electricity prices. Those opposite are for higher energy prices and less electricity into the market. It is clear when they come in here and criticise our budget that they don't support us delivering a tax cut for every single Australian and energy bill relief for every single household. (Time expired)

Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm not sure what Senator Green is smoking, but whatever it is she needs to get off it.

Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Point of order. I think the senator should withdraw that and apologise.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was a reflection on a colleague in the chamber. It would be helpful if you could withdraw, please.

Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw. The speech that we just heard by Senator Green was riddled with a number of factual inaccuracies. The idea that Labor has kept assets in Queensland's hands is complete and utter rubbish. We saw under the Bligh-Beattie government the reckless sale of Queensland's infrastructure. The Port of Brisbane was sold for six times earnings and the forestry plantations were sold for five times earnings. The solar and wind farms back then were sold. We should never forget that it was the great Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen who built the coal-fired power stations that are the backbone of the eastern states' energy grid. Today we have the southern interconnector that basically sends energy down to the southern states and keeps the lights on in this country. In 1989, at the end of the Nationals government, we had the cheapest energy in the world.

That is something that we need to reflect on this week, because this budget was a show about nothing. It reminded me of the Seinfeld episode 'The Hamptons' when George Costanza got out of the pool and all we saw was shrinkage. The best that this budget could come up with was a measly $300 to offset the thousands of dollars that energy prices have risen. It's a measly $6 a week. That is the best that Albanese could come up with. What a joke.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Rennick—

Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Here we go.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would ask you to refer to those in the other place with their correct title.

Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

All Prime Minister Albanese could come up with was a measly $6 a week to deal with the cost of living that has risen by tens of thousands of dollars during his term of government. And here they are claiming credit for the tax cuts. These tax cuts were initially introduced in our first week in parliament back in July 2019, and over the long term they're actually going to cost Australians more due to bracket creep. What the Labor government don't like to talk about is the fact that they're giving a little bit back now, but it's going to cost you more later. Mark my words: this side of the chamber will be going to the next election with more income tax cuts. I've been openly critical of the fact that we didn't cut income taxes enough in the nine years we were last in government. Something that I've advocated for in every backbench meeting that I go to is lower income taxes because it is the people in this country who get out of bed every day and put their noses to the grindstone who are going to drag us out of this inflation mess that we have got into.

Senator Green's question about what we would like to cut is accusing the coalition of wanting to cut things. We do want to cut things. We want to cut immigration because that is completely unsustainable. The growth in immigration from 200,000 people to 500,000 people has been completely unmatched by the supply of new dwellings.

The other thing we'd like to cut and get rid of is the $23 billion subsidy to wealthy billionaires for green energy. The sad reality of it is that they're going to give the hardworking Australian family $6 a week and yet they are going to turn around and give wealthy billionaires like Andrew Forrest, and his green hydrogen fantasy, billions of dollars. That is a complete and utter joke. If Labor really wanted to lower energy prices in this country, they would get on and continue to build base-load power stations—especially coal, because that's readily accessible now—and they would also abolish the nuclear prohibition in this country. We need to be adopting nuclear power as soon as possible, because we have a vast abundance of resources in this country. Why on earth would you turn your back on homegrown resources, like uranium, coal and gas, only to turn around and subsidise billionaires to import foreign-made renewables?

It's a bit rich for the Labor Party to claim that somehow the coalition doesn't want to bring back manufacturing. It was the Button plan of 1985 that sent manufacturing offshore. How could we ever forget that? If you want to bring manufacturing back onshore in this country, back our base-load energy supplies of coal, gas and uranium. (Time expired)

Varun Ghosh (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, rise to take note of answers to questions without notice. The coalition's history of financial irresponsibility is a nightmare from which this country is still struggling to awaken. When we came to government, inflation in this country was running at 6.1 per cent. In the 12 months to March 2024, it has reduced to 3.5 per cent—that is, nearly halved in the time we've been in government. One of the main challenges that the Albanese government has had to deal with is the inflationary hangover from the Morrison government—profligate spending, underinvestment in economic infrastructure and a complete neglect of systems of social support in this country. That's despite the fact that, across nine years, there was budget deficit after budget deficit, whereas what Labor has delivered now, for a second year running, is a budget surplus.

Following a budget surplus of $22.1 billion in 2022-23, the budget is forecasting a surplus of $9.3 billion in 2023-24. Though, once again grasping the nettle, the Treasurer does acknowledge that fiscal pressures intensify after that and that there will be future deficits. But progress has been made in strengthening the budget over that time. That is the serious effort of budget repair.

Since Prime Minister Albanese has taken government, we have identified $77.4 billion in savings. This budget identifies $27.9 billion in savings and reprioritisations. It limits real spending growth to an average of 1.4 per cent per year over the period since we came to government to 2027-28. That's less than half the average of the last 30 years and around a third of our predecessors. The budget improves the position by a forecast $214.7 billion over the six years to 2027-28, compared to at the time of the election, and it reduces debt as a share of the economy, with gross debt projected to peak at 35.2 per cent of GDP—almost 10 per cent lower than at the time of the election. So we've grasped the issue of inflation, we've grasped the issue of deficits and we've engaged in the hard work of budget repair.

The second wicked problem that we were left with, as reflected in the questions and answers at question time today, was a cost-of-living crisis. We address that at a number of different levels, including with a tax cut for all Australians, energy prices relief and, importantly—finally—real wages increase, after a long period of stagnation under the previous government. Annual real wages rose by 0.5 per cent in the year to the March quarter of 2024, and they're forecast to grow by 0.5 per cent for the next three years. Working Australians will have more money in their pockets as a result of higher real wages under an Albanese Labor government. When the coalition was in power, low wages growth was a deliberate design feature of the economic system that they sought to advance. It was an architecture that deliberately hurt working Australians. The coalition suppressed wages growth, adding to the current cost-of-living crisis.

We heard a lot about housing today in the questions and answers given, but this is a government that's committed to improving housing supply in Australia and providing demand side assistance. There are a number of policies that my colleague Senator Green referred to. Perhaps the most relevant, in terms of our future planning opportunities, is that this government is supporting investments in infrastructure around housing. So there's a billion dollars in the budget that will help get homes built sooner, because it funds states and territories to build roads, sewers, and energy, water and community infrastructure that are essential not only to assist in building new houses but to make sure that those houses are in areas that are livable and that Australians can find a true home. (Time expired)

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Minister for Climate Change and Energy has done it again. He is sometimes the truthteller of the ALP. He has gone out and admitted that the $300 off everyone's electricity bill is the ALP's attempt to buy lower inflation. It is just an extraordinary lack of understanding of economics. When people have more money in their pocket and they go out and spend it, prices go up and inflation increases. Supply and demand equals price: that is the basics of economics. I wish Senator Scarr were here because he could pass around his book so that a few people could read it. It is extraordinary that this is what this government has managed to come up with: an attempt to buy inflation reduction.

But we know that that's not going to happen because the $300 is going to every household. We've got a place in Queensland and a place in Canberra that we own. I stay here, and we rent our house in Sydney, so I've got three power bills. That's three households. Am I getting a $900 reduction? We don't actually know because it's not very clear. No-one knows who is getting it. Everyone is talking about the millionaires and billionaires who are getting it who don't need it, but how many times are they getting it? It might not just be $300. We know that there are senators in this place with seven houses. Jim Chalmers, the Treasurer, has got two. Is he getting 600 bucks? I think some of the Greens have got four or five houses each. Is that 1,200 or 1,500 bucks coming their way? Who knows? Like everything with this Labor government, the devil is in the detail, which doesn't exist, and the transparency with which they share their plans with the Australian people is non-existent.

Guillotine Thursday happened again today, as they buddy up with their mates to make sure that they can cover up all of their bad mistakes by not putting anything to the committee stage if they can help it, and ensuring that there is no oversight, no transparency and no integrity. There is just arrogance and hubris and a constant display of incompetence, with them needing to come back in and say: 'Oops, we made a mistake on that one. We'd better fix it up.' In the most recent case, the Attorney-General had to go and make some changes before the bill was even put to the House. But don't worry! We could have had a surplus of $10.3 billion if we weren't spending a billion dollars on the AAT rebrand. Never mind that.

What we do know about this budget is that it has gone down with every economist around the country like a lead balloon. Yesterday I heard the Minister for Finance say that, if you put 10 economists in a room, you'll come up with 10 different opinions, and I agree with that sentiment. It's usually the case. There's usually quite a big split among economist about what's going to happen and what they think the impacts will be going forward, but at the moment, for the first time I can recall, there seems to be universal damnation of this budget by every leading economist in this country. Not one has come out and said, 'This is a great budget.' They've said it's an election budget. They've said it's a budget that's going to lead to longer and more sticky inflation. They've said it's a budget that the Labor government thinks will be short-term gain but definitely long-term pain for the Australian taxpayer.

It is literally universal. I applaud the Minister for Finance and the Treasurer for their ability. It has never occurred before that every economist in the country thinks the budget is a stinker. And they are 100 per cent correct, because we have $315 billion worth of spending. This is a true Labor budget. It's another moment of truth-telling: tax and spend, tax and spend, tax and spend. Your income tax receipts are going through the roof. If you look through the budget estimates into the forwards, you are giving more and more of your money to this government. But going into the future, they are spending $4 more than that for every dollar. So they are contributing to this inflation. They are contributing to the issues the country is going to face long into the future due to the structural damage that they are continuing to do. The fact that they refer to their changes to the stage 3 tax cuts as cost-of-living relief shows their complete inability to understand that stage 1, stage 2 and stage 3—remember, there were other stages—were about tax reform. Those opposite don't understand what reform means. They don't understand economics. It's an absolute embarrassment and a shambles. The sooner we see the back of this government, the better.

Question agreed to.

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the response provided by the minister representing the Treasurer to the questions I asked her earlier today.

Labor's budget is handed down while the climate is collapsing around us, while ecological systems are crashing and while millions of Australians are getting smashed by cost-of-living pressures. Labor's response is a managerial, business-as-usual budget that proposes to solve those great challenges by continuing the very actions that cause them or that allow them to happen. It's a turgid, bland, chaff-ridden budget. It's a betrayal of Australians who want action on climate change, action to protect nature and relief from the cost-of-living pressures that are smashing them. It's classic modern Labor: talk up an absolute storm on climate change and cost of living, then abjectly fail to take the strong and urgent action needed to respond to those challenges. It locks in worsening economic inequality and exacerbates the breakdown of the planet's climate and ecosystems. It's a budget for the wealthy, it's a budget for corporate interests and it's a budget for the donors that line the coffers of the Labor Party.

Australians are crying out for genuine government intervention to stop price gouging, to stop corporate profiteering and to have genuine, meaningful relief from cost-of-living pressures. Yet this budget does next to nothing to support those who really need our support. It has a pittance of rent relief for a handful of renters while containing tens of billions of dollars every year in subsidies for property investors who own multiple investment properties. There's lip service to renewables but over $50 billion worth of subsidies to encourage the burning of fossil fuels. There's handwringing about the pain people are feeling at the supermarket checkout but nothing to make price gouging illegal, nothing to break up the supermarket duopoly and no new money or measures to bring down food and grocery prices.

It's becoming harder and harder to tell the Labor and Liberal parties apart. At the last election people voted for change. They didn't vote for a Labor treasurer to bring down a Liberal budget. This budget reflects a party doing everything it can to cement the status quo that allows corporations and the wealthy to profit to the detriment of people and the planet. Where Labor is claiming to help people, it is providing the bare minimum of relief, and it's doing that because it's not really interested in solving problems; it's interested in trying to reduce the political pressure on it to solve problems, whether it's student debt, housing, rent caps or income support payments. Remember, Labor used to be a party of free education. It used to be a party of universal health care. It used to be a party of affordable housing. Now it is a party that bows to corporate vested interests, and nowhere is that more stark than in relation to coal and gas corporations.

On the very same day that scientists warned we are on the edge of a climate abyss, the Labor Party announced a plan to make Australia reliant on gas expansion well beyond 2050. This is an absolute capitulation to the coal and gas corporations—enforcing the burning of our planet, watching our coral reefs bleach and die, watching our ecosystems collapse, with thousands of species marching towards extinction. This is what state capture looks like. It is unconscionable and it is shameful.

To renters struggling to afford rent hikes, to mortgage holders struggling to cope with record rate rises, to students skipping meals to keep a roof over their heads or dumpster diving to put food on the table, to everyone who can no longer afford to insure their own homes because vast parts of the country are becoming uninsurable because Labor continue to approve more coal and gas mines, know this one thing: Labor could have, in this budget, acted to help you. They simply chose not to.

Question agreed to.