Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When Australia's longest-serving Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies, launched the first campaign for the modern Liberal Party he said, 'We need to return to politics as a clash of principle and get away from the notion that it is only a clash of warring personalities.' This idea would resonate just as strongly with the Australian public today. Modern policy makers need to break free from a political discourse defined by an ever-shortening media cycle punctuated by tweets and blogs and the cult of personality. Above all, these political games have obscured the serious challenges Australia is facing. People want the masquerade to end. They want the real challenges identified so solutions in the form of genuine policy can take shape.

Australian society is traditionally a society that encourages its citizens to expand their horizons and to dream big. It is a society that instils in its citizens the ethos that with hard work your goals, your ambitions and your aspirations are always attainable. So embedded are these aspirational values in our culture that a generation of Australians have grown up understanding that home ownership is a reality and employment in their dream job is a probability.

Generations of Australians have grown up believing that all of our aspirations are possible. At its best, Australia is a nation full of hope for every young person that they may be rewarded for their efforts, paving the way for a future of endless opportunities. Yes, Australia is a nation that allows any young person with the desire to achieve and the hard work to go with it the opportunity to enjoy a comfortable life. At least that is the narrative that we believe in, that we hold dear and that history reflects. But today's dark art of political spin doctoring—the pursuit of a cheap headline or a sound bite—has not just been an effort to paper over the cracks in Australia's once bountiful economy; it has also fostered the growth of ill-conceived policy on the run.

Australia has witnessed a significant increase in spending across welfare entitlements as a percentage of gross domestic product. This has been driven by handouts focused on short-term election cycles and political parties trying to outbid one another. Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey once described it as the battle between the fiscal reality of paying for what you spend set against the expectation of the majority of public opinion that each generation will receive the same support from the state as their forebears or increased support. In essence, it is a culture of entitlement and it needs to end.

While the next generation of Australians will arguably continue to see our nation as a lucky country, we are now a land uniquely placed in the heart of a globalised world between the dominant West and a rising Asia. While this changed landscape will bring its own influences to bear, the next generation will face additional changes such as an ageing population. There will be a greater burden on government drawing from a smaller revenue base. This inevitable demographic dilemma may well coincide with the waning of the mining boom and, as demographer Bernard Salt pointed out, our society and businesses are in a great state of flux. When the baby boomer generation leaves the workforce, they will take with them not only their skills but their taxpaying capacity. While the preceding generation of 2½ million Australians enter retirement, we now see four million Australians on the edge of retirement about to draw on age pensions, pharmaceutical benefits and other assistance from government. While the 1990s experienced a net overseas migration rate of approximately 100,000 per year, today it is 170,000 or 180,000, providing only an extra 80,000 working Australians, not nearly enough to plug the gap rendered by our shifting demographics.

Generation Y faces an inescapable burden—that is, paying for a much higher demand on government. Sure, generation Y, described by Bernard Salt as the most educated and globally minded generation, may have several inherent advantages it still has to be able to mobilise if it is to secure its own financial future and participate in a high-wage and highly productive economy. While the previous generation saw a massive increase in productivity as women entered the workforce, gen Y and future generations are facing a world with no guarantees. To achieve similar productivity gains they will need to capitalise on new technology and persistently expand into new markets. They will require constant upskilling and further training and they will need to be a more creative workforce. So an indisputable demographic challenge faces the next generation of Australians. There will be a greater onus on them than on the previous generation to secure their own financial future. As a nation, we must meet this challenge from a position of strength. We must take advantage of the opportunities we have now. This, as I began, is what will ultimately require a mind shift in many policy areas, a moving away from the immediate here and now—the day-to-day politicking—towards a long-term focused direction, one that is capable of meeting the test of enormous structural change to our economy and to our society.

Here is the rub: as I previously said in this place, the aspirations and goals of so many Australians are under threat due to this government's self-serving character. This government has chosen to pursue its own agenda and to turn inward and concentrate on its own political survival ahead of listening to Australians—real Australians, those hardworking Australians simply trying to make their way.

On the brink of a period of decisive intergenerational challenge, this government chooses to listen to and hold its closest reserve for pollsters and spin doctors. Since it assumed power in 2007, home affordability and real household wealth have declined. The average monthly repayments on new home loans have skyrocketed from $1,194 in the John Howard years to $2,074 today. The average proportion of family income devoted to new home loan repayments has leapt from 27.8 per cent under the previous coalition government to 34.4 per cent with Labor. As we approach the combined headwinds of an ageing population, climate change and a post-mining-boom economy, this government's hands are nowhere near the wheel. Debt is wallowing at more than $200 billion. The interest repayments alone are $7 billion a year—that is the interest before the principal. The locals in my community expect—surely not unreasonably—that their government should take pressure off family budgets, that their government will fuel the economy and grow job opportunities and that their government will value their money and live within its means, all the while prioritising the delivery of better services and better infrastructure. But instead Labor still believes that it can both tax and subsidise a nation into prosperity—so obviously a flawed formula lacking the element of incentive in each instance.

As I related in my maiden speech in this place, it is the Liberal side of politics that is the side of opportunity. We are the party based on encouragement rather than subsidy and a hand-up instead of a handout. These philosophical beliefs are at the core of why we will always fight for lower taxes, smaller and more efficient government and the individual's right to choose. A new coalition government will pay down Labor's debt, restore fiscal discipline and return the budget to a sustainable surplus. The coalition will put an end to wasteful spending programs and will cut the cost of red tape for business by $1 billion every year. The carbon tax will be abolished, and a coalition government will rebuild a powerhouse economy through lower taxes, more efficient government and productive business. It will create one million jobs within five years and two million jobs across the next decade. At a watershed time—a time of significant geopolitical and demographic change—it will end the spin and restore hope, reward and opportunity for all Australians.