Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Rennick has submitted a proposal under standing order 75 today as shown at item 15 on today's Order of Business:

The two major parties have no vision for our children's future. Their profligate spending over the last two decades has left our children facing record levels of debt, unaffordable housing, and a lack of essential services due to underinvestment in infrastructure and high immigration.

Is consideration of the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

With the concurrence of the Senate the clerks will set the clocks in line with the informal arrangements made by the whips.

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

Here we are on the eve of the budget and the Australian people are clueless. They are clueless. They are out there hoping that the Albanese government may be able to provide some solutions to the economic malaise that we have found ourselves in thanks to two decades of reckless economic management by both of the major parties. If what we've seen so far is anything to go by, it looks like it is just going to become a spend-a-thon by the two major parties—being led, I might add, by the Labor Party, and then the Liberal Party is pretty much just rolling over within minutes, matching every spending announcement by the Labor government. This sort of reckless expenditure has to stop, because the Australian people can't afford it and, more importantly, our children can't afford it.

In 2007, when John Howard left office, the Australian government had no debt, yet here we are, 18 years later, and we have $1 trillion in debt. Of course, that excludes the liability for the defined benefits scheme for retired bureaucrats, and it also excludes, I might add, the $482 billion sitting in franking accounts that no-one seems to want to talk about anymore. We have got a great deal of economic reform ahead of us if we want to provide our children with the same opportunities as our forefathers gave to us. It's a very sad day when a minor party like People First, for example, has all the major solutions, because we know that the major parties only have minor solutions. Of course, those minor solutions are just spending more of taxpayers' dollars without any real long-term economic benefits. These little sugar hits are like giving a child candy all the time. You are not going to breed good behaviour. What you need to be doing is actually looking at developing and building and tapping into the great untapped wealth of this country.

We at People First have a great vision for this country. We know how to get the country back on track, and that is by building infrastructure in the same way that our forefathers did. When they came here, there was very, very little in the way of economic opportunity, but our pioneering forefathers had great vision. They knew that with seven million square kilometres of abundant land, massive rainfall—albeit, some of that rain needs to be redirected into drier locations—a beautiful coastline, and millions of acres of fertile, black soil you can build a prosperous country. We've seen that happen over the last 200 years. We saw a prosperous country built, yet in just two decades we've seen the two major parties squander it through nothing but fearmongering and lies. We saw the fearmongering through COVID and the lies about climate change.

We've seen the constant repetition of these two major parties putting foreign interests and the interests of multinationals in front of the Australian people. I literally just got off the phone with a constituent that works in outsourcing, and he was saying that the banks are outsourcing thousands of jobs to the Philippines and India. They can pay people in the Philippines and India $15,000 and save $150,000 here, and our governments do nothing about taxing the wealth that is being transferred offshore. They do nothing about it. I literally just refreshed myself on the 2018 paper that I got the Parliamentary Library to write up about the petroleum resource rent tax and how we are letting billions of dollars go offshore for our gas, yet the two major parties do nothing about it. Likewise, with renewables, we import foreign made renewables. Seventy per cent of renewable energy companies in Australia are foreign owned, yet we close down our own homegrown industries, like coal—not so much gas—in favour of foreign renewable companies. When are the two major parties going to bite the bullet and start to put Australians first?

Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Rennick's motion this afternoon is very timely because we know that we'll have a federal budget soon, in the next few hours, and in a few days we'll have the calling of an election, and within two months we'll have the outcome of that election and know who will be trusted to govern this country and chart the path forward. This election will be about who can manage the economy better and allow Australians to get ahead.

Australia cannot continue on its current path. Under Labor, inflation is higher, interest rates are up, sharply, and Australian households have had the largest fall in living standards in our history. Housing is unaffordable, and our country and our communities are less safe. As a nation we must do better to rebuild our economy and to get Australia back on track. On Thursday night we'll hear from the man that deserves to be the Prime Minister of our country, Peter Dutton, because he has the experience, conviction, energy and enthusiasm to put this country back on track.

The coalition will deliver something different to what has been delivered to Australians over the last three years. The coalition will deliver low inflation by cutting wasteful spending and reducing tax and red tape. The coalition will deliver cheaper energy with a mix of renewables, gas and zero emissions nuclear energy. The coalition will deliver more affordable housing by funding critical infrastructure and restricting foreign investors. The coalition will deliver on safer communities by getting tough on violent crime, boosting border security and improving online safety for children. And the coalition will deliver and sustain quality health care by funding more GPs and more bulk-billing, including more Medicare subsidised mental health sessions.

Across Western Australia, whether I'm travelling in the far north or across the Great Southern, Western Australians know, and have been telling me, that they can't afford another three years of Labor. They know Labor has failed them in Western Australia, failed to manage the economy, failed to keep them safe and failed to keep us united. Under Labor, Australians are paying more for food, more for rent and more for power and gas, and the dream of homeownership for young Australians has almost evaporated.

Australians have had the largest fall in living standards in the developed world under Labor. Small-business bankruptcies are at record highs under Labor. Anthony Albanese said in May 2022, almost three years ago, that life would be cheaper under Labor. He failed. More than that, the Prime Minister has shown himself to be weak, distracted and focused on the wrong priorities. The Prime Minister is out of his depth. He is incapable of fixing the problems facing Australia. Australians feel let down, and Australians deserve better.

Tonight's budget is a test for Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers. It's a test to see if Labor can deliver a budget for the next five years, not the next five or so weeks. Labor budgets, thus far, have been wasted opportunities. Australians have seen two windfall gains completely wasted, and tonight they will see a sea of deficits as far as the eye can see. Tonight the coalition will be looking for a budget that can restore a standard of living that has been lost under this Labor government. Australian living standards have collapsed further and faster than ever before.

At the election, Australians will have a clear choice. Can they guarantee, for their children and their grandchildren, living standards that are comparable to those that they've enjoyed for themselves or that their forefathers and foremothers enjoyed? The answer is simple: under Labor, you cannot be guaranteed a quality of life in Australia.

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If the children and young people who come to visit this parliament to watch what happens only knew how their future was being sold here, they'd be horrified. In a world where the changed climate is likely to have the most significant impact on the lives of young people, the calculated destruction of a liveable future brings shame to every person in this place who is involved in it. And you can't say you didn't know. Their future is in the balance, and you're spending hundreds of billions of dollars on AUKUS instead of investing in a safe climate and giving everyone a home. Do you know what won't help young people when their communities are facing devastating floods and fires? Do you know what doesn't build local resilience and help people survive when the climate crisis turns up in their local hood? I'll tell you what: nuclear submarines. The government know that climate change is the biggest threat to the security of this country, and in typical fashion for Labor, they are trying to hide the fact. They commissioned a report on it through the Office of National Intelligence—reassured the media and the public how seriously they were taking it. Then, when the report came back, they hid it under a rock. Apparently, the national security impacts of climate change are too scary for the public to even know about—and that should terrify us all. What are they hiding?

In an attempt to curry favour, they gave some independent MPs a confidential briefing on the report, and then they swore them to secrecy—another classic Labor strategy of gagging your critics. The thing is, from flooded communities across Brisbane to the Northern Rivers in my home state of New South Wales to the fires burning near Ballarat, people can see the truth about the climate crisis. We can see the impacts of massive droughts, unseasonal cyclones and catastrophic rainfall in our country. We can see the truth of what the climate crisis is doing to our region and, fundamentally, to our national security. Our Pacific neighbours are going under water. Our region is going to be dramatically destabilised if we don't deal with climate change as coastal cities are inundated and food security is ravaged. Now, we can either pretend that none of this is happening, or we can get serious about climate action, keep coal and gas in the ground and support efforts for climate resilience in our country and our neighbourhood. What I can say is that when climate change seriously hits the fan we won't all fit on a handful of near-mythical AUKUS nuclear submarines.

Jana Stewart (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to thank Senator Rennick for raising this important matter about empowering our next generation of younger Australians. It seems a bit cheeky, though. He's been out of the coalition opposition for two hot minutes and he's already kicking them in the guts on the way through about having no vision for our children's future. But he sat on that side of the chamber and voted every time, as long as I've been here, against the measures we've brought to this parliament that build Australia's future, particularly for our children. But sure: let's kick your former colleagues in the guts on the way through—and I'm happy to do a bit of that, too.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Multicultural Engagement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you—very gracious of you.

Jana Stewart (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know. Thank you very much—senator of the people.

For a generation of Australians, homeownership feels too far away, and being a renter feels too insecure. Too many people spend their weekends in rental queues, lining up for a home they don't really want to live in. We've got a generation of Australians who are stuck in rent traps, who feel anger and despair that homeownership might not ever happen for them. We've got Australians making major life decisions—delaying having children or giving up precious time—to spend two hours a day in the car commuting to work, all because they can't get the stability of a place near where they want to live. We've also got the brilliant idea of Mr Dutton to force everyone back into the office and spend more time in their cars. We know that the state of housing in our country isn't good enough, and there's plenty that our government is doing about it. Every Australian deserves a healthy and affordable place to call home. The country's housing crisis has absolutely been decades in the making. We know that one of the main barriers to the construction of more homes is a lack of basic infrastructure. That's why the Albanese Labor government is building Australia's future and tackling the housing crisis caused by 10 years of coalition neglect. We're making it easier to buy, we're making it more affordable to rent and we're building more homes faster through our 'home of your own' plan and expanded Home Guarantee Scheme.

In stark contrast, and here are some of the comparisons, Senator Rennick and the coalition's version of prioritising the future of our children and younger Australians involves consistently voting against every measure that the Labor government has brought into this chamber. It might be worthwhile to spend a bit of time having a look at their voting record. They voted against increasing funding for public schools. They voted against increasing funding for early years educators. They voted against increasing housing affordability for younger Australians. They voted against increasing the youth allowance rate. They voted against removing children from immigration detention. What an absolute joke.

Labor's expanded Home Guarantee Scheme delivers lower deposits for first home buyers, which has helped twice as many people as under the former government. We're also supporting Australians with smaller mortgages under our Help to Buy shared-equity scheme. Our plan will help hundreds of thousands of first home buyers over the next few years, getting you into your own home sooner.

But we know the long-term fix for housing is to strike the right balance between the number of homes that we have and the number of homes that we need. That's why we're starting the largest house-build in Australia's history. We have an ambitious target of 1.2 million new homes, and we're delivering 55,000 social and affordable rental homes. We're directly investing in building new homes, just like we used to and just like your federal government should do. To unlock these homes in our cities, suburbs and regions, we're training more tradies, building more infrastructure and cutting red tape. We're also banning the foreign ownership of homes and bringing immigration down to sustainable levels. On top of that, we've delivered two budget surpluses, we've got inflation under control and we're helping Australians who are doing it tough.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Rennick for this opportunity to speak about One Nation's policies and note that, in March, his statements and policies are becoming increasingly loaded with One Nation policies that we released earlier the month before, in February. In that, it's like Labor and the LNP too, who are copying elements of our policies.

For the entire time I've been in this Senate, I've spoken on the need to restore Australia's productive capacity through the construction of new infrastructure. It's a simple metric: the living standard of each Australian is expressed as our gross domestic product divided by population. With five million new Australians in the last 10 years, 2½ million of those under this Labor government, our gross domestic product is being split into new slices for the new arrivals faster than it's growing. As a result, the standard of living of individual Australians is going backwards and has fallen by eight per cent since Labor took over. Did anyone hear Prime Minister Albanese promise in his 2022 election pitch to reduce the living standards of everyday Australians by eight per cent? I didn't. The answer is clearly and certainly to reduce immigration, although the government must embrace the other side of that equation as well, which is building new infrastructure to grow our productive capacity.

One Nation are taking a platform to this election that includes building a national rail loop to take hundreds of thousands of truck movements off the roads, making freight handling cheaper and more efficient, reducing supermarket prices and making Australia more competitive. That's vital in a large country with a small population; logistics is tops. Our platform also includes a new northern rail crossing from Port Hedland to Moranbah and the Port of Gladstone in Queensland to open the east Pilbara and the north-west minerals province in Queensland to the international market, facilitating exports worth hundreds of billions of dollars and tens or hundreds of thousands of breadwinner jobs. There's also a multifunction corridor to take water, power and internet along the new northern crossing railway to bring town services to more than 100 remote communities across the Top End; Hells Gates Dam in Far North Queensland to provide flood mitigation, water security and hydropower; and the Urannah water project and pipeline, amongst others. What will be the source of these funds? There will be $90 billion from cutting waste and duplication, itemised. See our website; it's fully costed.

Each year, we will put $40 billion of that back into people's pockets. For example, couples with children income-splitting will save almost $10,000 a year. It's fully costed. Each year, we will invest $20 billion in infrastructure to increase productive capacity to increase our children's wages. Each year, we will pay down record debt of $30 billion, which is estimated to become $50 billion the year after next per year, to reduce interest. Only through building our productive capacity can we hope to provide for the millions of new arrivals, generate new government revenue from increased economic activity and restore wealth and opportunity to all who call this beautiful country home.

Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Federal budgets provide an opportunity to get an insight into the priorities of a government. They're an opportunity for a government to present a vision about the sort of country that they want to see; an opportunity to pave the way towards a more fair, just and equitable future; and an opportunity to deliver more than just polished talking points and instead announce measures that will make everyday people's lives better. Unfortunately, I fear that the government's budget will fall short on many of these measures, because a fair budget wouldn't see government taking in much more from student debt repayments than the petroleum resource rent tax. A just budget wouldn't have nurses, early childcare educators and teachers paying more in tax than some fossil fuel companies. An equitable budget wouldn't make it easier for someone who owns seven homes to buy their eighth home than for someone to break in and buy their first home.

Of course, the Greens have reached out to the Labor government to try to 'Mr-Dutton-proof' key measures, including slashing student debt and expanding bulk-billing, but Labor decided that an election carrot trumped the alternative of helping people right now. Of course, the other side's no better. They are proposing to rob people of their super with their short-sighted housing policy. Intergenerational inequity is the shameful legacy of both major parties in this place. The two parties have relied on the complacency that their terrible decision-making creates.

I'm pleased to say that across my home state of Victoria young people are not being complacent. Instead, they're channelling their frustration into action and running as lower house candidates across the state because they believe in a more just, fair and equitable future. There is Reuben Steen in Aston, Avery Barnett-Dacey in Bendigo, Ravneet Garcha in Calwell, Tim Randall in Chisholm, Mitch Pope in Corangamite, Emilie Flynn in Corio, Amy Mills in Deakin, Matt Maber in Dunkley, Alana Galli-McRostie in Goldstein, Thuc Bao Huynh in Gorton, Martin Barry in Hotham, Jy Sandford in Jagajaga, Marley McRae McLeod in McEwen and Sarah Newman in Hawke, with more young people to be announced. Thank you all for your leadership.

Budgets are a question of priorities. Politics is a question of priorities. Leadership is a question of priorities. Whether it's ripping off our kids with negative gearing tax breaks or working to gut our environmental laws as they're doing just this week it begs the question: what are the priorities of the major parties in this place? What could possibly be more important than safeguarding the future for our kids and their kids? This election, vote for the future. Vote for the Greens, because nothing changes if nothing changes.

Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A lot of the decisions being made by those in power go against the best interests of young people in this country. This includes children from migrant backgrounds who are beloved members of our communities and some of the most vulnerable, especially those seeking asylum and refuge here. All children deserve access to the opportunities that are available in this country. They have the right to safety, education, housing, food and freedom from discrimination and criminalisation.

There are basic fundamental rights enshrined in international law. Yet successive governments have, by design, systematically underfunded our essential services and have instead created an economic apartheid, where the ability to access safe, ongoing, quality health, housing or education is dictated by the colour of your skin and the money in your bank account rather than the fundamental need. We have transitioned seamlessly from a welfare to a carceral state. We know that black kids in this country only ever experience the carceral state and, since colonisation, have been defined by policies designed to punish and destroy rather than care and nurture. Black kids in this country are on a fast-track pipeline from child protection to incarceration from before they're even born.

First Peoples understand that rights come with the responsibility to care for our mother country, our community, our waterways and the air that we breathe—as our ancestors did, protecting this country for future generations. Policies that pursue profit, privatisation, war and the destruction of country and culture go directly against the real law of this land, the law that's been here since before the ancestors of anyone else in this room right now. The law of this land was to protect our future generations. But the law in this chamber and this building is to demonise our children and threaten our children's future.

Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In November 2024, for the first time, cost of living featured as the No. 1 issue in Mission Australia's annual Youth survey report. The percentage of young people worrying about the issue has more than doubled in two years, and it is by far their biggest concern. This is the time in the lives of these young Australians when they should be focusing on study, enjoying their first job or completing their apprenticeship. They should be having the time of their lives, without carrying all this adult stuff around with them. They should be being teenagers, being young people, but we haven't allowed them to do that. Instead, they are struggling to find housing, struggling to pay university and HECS fees and even struggling to feed themselves. This is taking an unacceptable toll on their mental health. We are all part of that. We are part of the toll that it's taking, because we are not making the right decisions.

These young people, particularly those in rural and regional areas like Tasmania, often can't afford, or even get, an appointment with a mental health professional. We had nearly 10 years under the coalition, and that didn't help, and in the last three years under Labor we haven't done much better. It's like you've got no idea how to handle the situation. It's absolutely shameful. What do we do with the younger population? How do we help them? Really, you in here have no idea. The Labor government hasn't brought down the cost of Arts fees. Even though you went on and on against this side, you've done nothing—silence, crickets.

The government could do something about this. Instead of pushing through your stinky salmon bill, how about raising Newstart? You could have done that if you'd bothered to means test when it came to energy cost support. How about raising youth allowance? Like I said, there's no means testing.

In Tasmania we have troubled kids locked up in a detention centre even though the Tasmanian government says it should be closed. They are planning to build another one on a barren piece of land between two motorways. How healthy is that? They put you in prison and put you near the highway. You can listen to the trucks all night and suck in the diesel. No worries! That's great. What a great move that is! I reckon the Tasmanian government's got something more coming on that, and I'm coming for them on it.

The second main concern young Australians have is about the environment and climate change. If we just showed a little imagination we could address this as well. We could look at reducing HECS fees in return for a bit of service to country. How about that? We could talk to unis, TAFEs and schools about integrating volunteering. We could help prepare and arm our young Australians with the resilience they need to face the challenges of the future. I've got a feeling they're going to need everything that they can get.

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for the discussion has expired.