Then we've got the water minister, who's just bought $205 million of productive water out of the Murray-Darling Basin. What that means is that all of that water goes out of those areas and goes flush down the mouth of the Murray and it's not used for growing food. What happens then? We have to import more food. What happens then? We've got less Australian home grown fresh produce, the best food anywhere. What that also means is that food prices go up. We've got a cost-of-living crisis, and Labor just wants to push the price of food up. Then we have the regional development minister yesterday talking about more mobile phone towers. That's fantastic if you're in a Labor electorate, but not all regional people live in a Labor electorate. Thank goodness!
]]>Mayor McNamara well remembers the member for Cook's visits to Cloncurry, Julia Creek and McKinlay during the terrible natural disaster that hit her region in early 2019. The people in those far-flung Queensland towns have not forgotten those visits and nor will they. The member for Cook as Prime Minister brought funding and, perhaps more importantly, hope to those flood affected communities and they appreciated it. It saved them. Not only did he stop by but he returned later to see how they were faring. That is the measure of the man and underlines the leadership he showed on that and many, many other issues.
I was there in February 2019 when the then Prime Minister told officials to get financial assistance in the bank accounts of devastated farmers within 24 hours. Those farmers had endured years of drought, but when the rain came it fell in biblical proportions and almost washed away the spirit of those hardy cattle producers. They were on the brink. Three years of rain had fallen in just 10 days. The Prime Minister was having nothing of bureaucratic delays and obfuscation. 'Get the money to them and do it within 24 hours,' he insisted and instructed. It was a decisive moment—stirring stuff, Morrison style.
On 24 August 2018, the day the member for Cook was elected Liberal leader and later Australia's 30th prime minister, we had a meeting immediately after his party room ballot. I remember it clearly. As the Nationals leader at the time, I sat down with the Prime Minister designate to sort out the directions our parties—different but together—would go in on certain pressing issues. There are a number of them. I recall writing down two words, the member for Cook did the same, and then we showed each other. Both of us penned the same thing: 'Drought visit.' It was the start of our successful working relationship. We were different but we were together, and that's the way it should be.
The following week the member for Cook and I found ourselves with Stephen and Annabel Tully at their 72,843-hectare Bunginderry Station at Quilpie, more than 200 kilometres west of Charleville—a long way from anywhere, you could say. It is in the electorate of Maranoa, represented by now Nationals leader David Littleproud. As the member for Maranoa said at the time, 'they're bred tough but no one is immune from this ongoing drought'. And he was right. Indeed, the Prime Minister saw the value of wild-dog fences, and other pest and weed management practices. They were valuable lessons for him to see firsthand and get a better understanding of farmers and regional, rural and remote Australians. Prime ministers of this country need to be the farmer's friend. The member for Cook was, in his time in the top job. He and I had any number of serious matters to deal with as Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister between 2018 and 2021. As I told Q+A: 'The golden age of Australian democracy'. Insert laughter here. But it was.
Drought, bushfires, floods and then a global pandemic. The worst of those COVID-19 times brought out the best in Scott Morrison. He went above and beyond, working incredible hours to save lives and protect livelihoods. He was calm, publicly confident and dedicated. He was unflappable.
I must say, our relationship survived some truly testing times for the nation and those even closer to home, such as the time when he stole one of my all-time favourite press secretaries, Dean Shachar, for his own office. Dean's in the advisors box now, and I'm still dirty on you, Scott, for doing that. But, anyway, we'll forgive and forget, as you've shown us the benefit of forgiveness today. Seriously, I do wish you, on behalf of the Nationals, all the very best, and I thank you for care, understanding of and delivery for those who lived beyond the bright city lights. Personally, on behalf of Catherine and I, and our family, thanks for your friendship, your support and your good humour. I'm not going to mention bad Santa, nor the census. Insert laughter here. May you, Jenny, your girls Abbey and Lily, and your mum, Marion, enjoy good health, happiness and every success in the future.
Finally, Jane McNamara has a Droughtmaster—an appropriately named breed—steer named ScoMo 2. This, now 800 kilogram, bullock was a mere poddy calf, you'll remember, in the midst of the 2019 floods. And the Prime Minister gave it a feed as the cameras snapped happily away. Because of his fame from those photos, the calf got his name and a guarantee of a life of grazing. He won't know his life of contentment and happiness is due to the PM's intervention; he will not. In the same way, I guess, many Australians will never fully appreciate the efforts and work Scott Morrison put into ensuring that their lives, too, were better.
Ultimately I believe history will be far kinder to the Morrison years of government than some are now. In the words of St John, Scott, you have fought the good fight, finished the race and kept the faith. Thank you.
]]>Then you've got pharmacists, such as the one in my electorate, having to give away free medication to pensioners who can't afford it. Then we've got the Minister for Health and Aged Care—and I'd like the member for Dobell to listen carefully because she is the regional health minister and I know she comes to this place with a good heart—saying that, if doctors aren't bulk-billing, people should just go and pick up the phone and ring another one who might. That's all well and good in a city electorate like his in Adelaide, but it ain't good enough in regional Australia! It's hard enough to get a doctor, let alone one that might bulk-bill. If you don't want that first one and you're lucky enough to have another one on the end of the phone, it might be hundreds of kilometres away. You are in pain and you have to be forced to go hundreds of kilometres, because the health minister thinks that doctors are so prevalent in the bush that they're absolutely everywhere.
This government has put in place a truckie tax. They've absolutely hurt the Murray-Darling Basin irrigators by taking productive water away and sending it out the mouth of the Murray. That's the way they're going to make sure that we grow more Australian food. Well, it's not. That's going to lead to more imported food and higher grocery prices. They've put in place so many taxes, and then they come in here today, puff their chests out and say, 'We're delivering better tax relief for lower and middle-income people.' They never mention stage 1 and stage 2 tax cuts. They've put $26 million more into spin doctoring than they would into Foodbank.
This government stands condemned for all the taxes they've put on lower and middle-income people. They stand condemned for doing what they said they wouldn't do prior to the election—which was one great fib.
]]>Mina Estafanos has owned the Forest Hill Pharmacy for six years. In the past week he has had several customers opt out of filling their vital prescriptions due to cost. One elderly man even admitted he had stopped buying food just to get some of his daily medication. Now, we should be better than that. We should be doing better than that. Watching residents choose between basic needs prompted an enormously generous response from Mr Estafanos. He's chosen to provide free medication to his customers who are doing it tough—he's taking to social media and asking the community to bring in those who've been avoiding paying for their medicine. What a generous man. But he shouldn't be required to do that.
Yesterday this government decided to give $14 million to Foodbank. That's a noble gesture. Foodbank is the largest hunger relief charity in the nation. Fourteen million dollars—that'll help.
]]>Labor has failed again to do what it should to keep its promises. The Help to Buy Bill 2023 is now being debated in 2024. It should have been done if Labor were serious many, many months ago—last year. Too little, too late—not good enough, Labor.
]]>The member for Boothby went on and on about what Labor was doing and what we didn't do as a government. Let me remind the member for Boothby and others opposite and anyone caring to listen what the coalition did do, what we did stand for, what we did represent. We supported almost 60,000 first home buyers and single-parent families into homeownership through the Home Guarantee Scheme, which consists of the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme and the New Home Guarantee and Family Home Guarantee, which require a deposit of as little as five per cent or two per cent respectively. The coalition's Home Guarantee Scheme supported one in three first home buyers.
We protected the residential construction industry, with more than 137,000 HomeBuilder applications generating—wait for this—$120 billion of economic activity. That's billion with a B, member for Jagajaga. We provided $2.9 billion—again, another B, not an M—of low-cost loans to community housing providers to support 15,000 social and affordable dwellings, saving $470 million in interest payments, which was to be reinvested in more affordable housing. We unlocked 6,900 social, affordable and market dwellings through the coalition's $1 billion dollar infrastructure facility, making housing supply more responsive to the demand. We established a First Home Super Saver Scheme, helping 27,600 first home buyers accelerate their deposit savings through super. That's what we did. There was more, but we'll just leave it at that to counter the Member for Boothby's arguments that the coalition did nothing. It was a big package that we brought to government and to the people of Australia.
We are facing a housing crisis. It is so difficult for young people in particular to get into their first home. It used to be the great Australian dream. Under Labor, that reality is fast disappearing. Sadly and all too tragically, under Labor's watch many small businesses are going under and many—I could argue most—of those companies that are going under and closing their doors are construction companies. They are the builders of houses, and they're not small companies either. Clough Group, Probuild, Dyldam Developments, Snowdon Developments, AGB Group and Condev have been some of the larger construction companies to fold. One of the more recent casualties is Porter Davis Homes Group, which was once rated the 13th-largest builder in Australia. It alone put 1,700 projects in jeopardy across multiple states. This is from information provided by Craig Donaldson of UNSW in an article on 29 June 2023.
There's that year ago, 2023, when the Help to Buy Bill was concocted by those opposite. They didn't do anything about it. They didn't bring it to parliament or legislate it in 2023. We're now midway through February 2024 and they've just realised: 'Gee, we'd better do something about this. The Greens are on our backs. They're not going to give us their preferences. They're going to take our votes in those inner city electorates.' I do wish Labor well, because the very worst Labor member is always going to be better than the best Greens candidate; I get that.
But construction companies have been collapsing so regularly. There are a number of reasons why residential construction companies have been going bankrupt: COVID shutdowns—I appreciate it's a very difficult time—extended periods of inclement weather and chronic supply chain issues to cashed-up infrastructure companies competing for construction labour; first-home builder stimulus packages being wound back under Labor's watch; and the end of a prolonged cheap credit fuelled surge. The industry has been at the centre of, unfortunately, a perfect storm.
There are some interesting comments about why construction companies are going under. There have been very pertinent points made by people such as Master Builders Australia CEO Denita Wawn. She said that inflation and the federal government's proposed industrial relations changes—she said this in September last year, and we know that those IR changes are now legislation—are placing pressure on small construction companies. If the fear of the IR changes was very real and tangible in September 2023, imagine what the fear and the reality will be in February 2024. Denita Wawn, of course, was right then to worry and should be even more concerned now. She went on to say:
While interest rate rises are starting to show fruits with consumer spending, the most sustainable solution to the inflationary problem lies on the supply side, by bringing down the cost of doing business.
This requires issues like labour shortages, materials costs, and the regulatory burdens to be dealt with in a focused and urgent manner.
Urgent! That was September 2023. We're now discussing the Help to Buy Bill 2023 in mid-February 2024. It should have been done last year. If it's that important, why wasn't it done last year? Ms Wawn said:
We hope all levels of government pull out all stops to tackling the very real housing market challenges and to do their bit to reduce costs because we all know that a strong building industry underpins a strong economy.
And, of course, it is so true. That's why during COVID, when we were in government, we provided so much support, help, encouragement and initiatives to the construction sector—sparkies, plumbers, chippies and tradies—making sure that they had the very best support available.
Between July 2022 and April 2023, 1,709 construction companies across the country entered administration, according to data from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission—July 2022 to April 2023, with Labor in power. It's on Labor's watch. It's on Labor's terms. This includes the likes of Porter Davis, as I mentioned before; ProBuild; Pivotal Homes; and, in the member for Boothby's state of South Australia, Quattro. It's not good enough. It's just not good enough. And you feel for those people who have entered a contract with a builder to build their dream home when, all of a sudden, the construction company goes under, and then they're faced with the prospect of: 'What do I do? I've invested my money. How do I get it back?' They have to go through that complete rigmarole of trying to fix up the mess that is left when a construction firm goes under.
The only housing policies delivering support to first-home buyers are the housing policies that Labor inherited from the former coalition government. The Albanese government has absolutely dragged its heels in introducing this legislation. They announced it many months ago. The government have already failed to deliver their Help to Buy scheme, but this is not so unusual, because Labor has failed on so many fronts. It was Help to Buy, a key election policy by Labor, but that was 2022. The title name of this policy includes '2023'. It's now 2024, and we won't see, until well into this year at the earliest, the sort of start that Labor's promising with this policy. Nine Network's Today show co-host Karl Stefanovic hit the nail on the head on 12 September 2023 in an interview with the Minister for Housing, the member for Franklin. He asked, 'You better get cracking. Six hundred homes a day for the next five years to make 1.2 million homes. You've got Buckley's, haven't you?' That was the question that he put to the Minister for Housing. She said, 'Obviously, we're not building all of the 1.2 million homes over the next five years by ourselves.' But 1.2 million homes, I wonder how many of those homes have been built, are being built, will be built? It will be a long way short of 1.2 million, particularly with so many construction companies going under, particularly with the cost-of-living crisis that people are enduring under Labor's watch.
I get that Labor has put through the low- and middle-income tax relief—their words, not mine—this morning, a broken promise, another election promise that wasn't delivered. The stage 3 tax cuts, they said were legislated. They said, 'Trust us. We're going to be accountable. We're going to be transparent.' They just keep breaking the faith. They just keep breaching promises with the Australian public.
Karl Stefanovic was right when he quizzed the Minister for Housing about what Labor was going to do, the funding that was going to be required, the delivery model that Labor was going to use. Again, I say this is such a crisis that we're under. I get that Labor's now trying to scramble because the Greens are out there making all sorts of noises in inner city seats that Labor wants to retain or win back. But in the midst of Labor's housing crisis, this underwhelming policy is too little, too late. They went to the election promising to put in place a shared equity scheme but failed to explain that the scheme needs state government approval to operate. This means Labor has made yet another promise it will fail to deliver.
It's all easy. Words are so easy. Promises are so easy. It's delivery that counts. It's delivery that matters. It's constructing homes at the rate that Labor said they were going to do that matters but it's impossible. And then, of course, speaking of state governments, we have a state Labor government in Victoria and they've been the government there for so many years—nine years—yet they're trying to shut down the timber industry, shut down the very products by which houses are made or part made.
]]>Our defence people need to be supported every step of the way. I acknowledge the service of the member for Braddon behind me. He is also somebody who has spent time at Blamey Barracks. Blamey Barracks is named after Field Marshall Thomas Blamey. He was a colonel at one stage. He was also a general. He ended up as Australia's only field marshal. He got that just before he passed away. Blamey Barracks is named after him. There's a street in Wagga Wagga named after him. There is even a pub named in his honour—and there should be, too, because, as Australia's highest-ranking military person, he deserves every accolade.
But I am concerned that defence is not being supported—and this is the subject of my grievance tonight—by this government as well as it should be. Just last week we learnt that the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Defence, had words with Defence bureaucrats and key military serving personnel about the culture of those in uniform, the culture of what he believes he's not receiving from the military. Many people in uniform are not happy with this. They are rather displeased at the fact that the minister has raised this. Apparently, in a meeting of between 25 to 30 of these high-ranking Defence officials and uniformed personnel, the minister explained why he was unhappy with his department, bringing into focus the performance of the military people underneath him.
Our military are the best in the world. I know that the defence minister would acknowledge that, but to lay the blame, as he did in this meeting reported by Andrew Tillett of the Australian Financial Review, and to call into question the department raises more questions than have been answered. When he was quizzed about this in question time, the Deputy Prime Minister went straight to blame, sheeting home the blame to our years in government, which is not fair, is not correct and is not justifiable. He said in his answer:
We are working closely with the Defence Force and cooperatively and well to improve the culture but there is a way to go because of the mess that was left by those opposite.
If you call record spending a mess and if you call the fact that we put defence at the forefront of all of our policies a mess—well, I'm afraid that you are mistaken. I know that our defence ministers, each and every one of them, very much appreciated, valued, recognised, acknowledged, praised and supported our people in uniform. Governments of all persuasion should do just that.
I don't think this government is paying due recognition and service to our defence people, and certainly not when it comes to making sure that the diplomacy that we should do and the efforts that we should go to in Ukraine and in other places are at the level they should be. Indeed, look at the Taipan and the Bushmaster. Those vital pieces of defence equipment and resource should be provided to Ukraine in its battle against the illegal invasion by Russia. If not, why not? If they don't have the right number of Bushmasters, why is that so? If they can't get the helicopters that they need and there are issues around servicing and their procurement, this is hampering their efforts to repel Russia at a time of world instability.
It goes beyond that. In the matter of public importance debate today, the Minister for Defence Industry and minister for the Pacific tabled a letter from Robert Menzies to Stanley Melbourne Bruce in the late 1930s. It was a bizarre tabling. He talked about why we shouldn't have gone into Vietnam and, in doing so, I believe, besmirched the 523 souls, Australians, who lost their lives in that conflict, let alone the 2,400 or thereabouts who were wounded. Never mind the many, many thousands more who came back from that war and were not thanked and recognised until, I will say, Bob Hawke made sure they were, and credit to former prime minister Hawke for doing that. Those men were sent to that conflict in the interests of repelling the rise of communism, and they did so on our behalf. They did so because they were sent there by the government of the day. For a minister to get up and say what he said was very disappointing.
We'll all have different views on the Iraq War. We'll all have different views on any war. But our servicepeople go there at our behest and our request—but not just ours. It's on the say-so of the Australian people. National security should be the No. 1 priority. It should always be.
At this time in particular our Defence needs to be praised. They shouldn't have to hear from a defence minister that he has issues with 'the culture' at a time when we have our Navy being sonar blasted, and our sailors, moreover, having to deal with that; at a time when the Pacific is a very contested space; and at a time when our soldiers, sailors and air men and women are doing their very best to represent this country, and they do so in an outstanding fashion. And, to that point, the CDF and everybody else who has carriage of leadership of our Army, Navy and Air Force are also doing their best, at the request of this government, to represent our nation on the world stage. If you go anywhere in the world, from Camp Baird to our peace deployments, to the Pacific, to the military bases in Wagga Wagga, my home town, and ask anybody, they will say the Australian service men and women are the best of the best.
Our veterans, who will soon march again on Anzac Day, 25 April, are also to be credited and acknowledged for the service and sacrifices that they've made in our name. They honour that tradition—the long line of khaki which stretches from Blamey Barracks in Kapooka all the way to Gallipoli in Turkiye. They honour that tradition. They honour that Anzac spirit. The Anzac torch still burns brightly in their hearts. I think the defence minister needs to explain what actually went on in that meeting and why he said it.
]]>Let's just have a look at 18 months of Labor and what has actually gone up in that time. With the cost of food, there's been a 9 per cent increase, and the cost of housing is up 12 per cent—that's if you can afford a house. It is so hard. We heard how the Minister for Housing, the member for Franklin, had a program under her watch to build—I don't know, was it a million houses? Then it became—who knows?—tens of thousands. I don't think we'll ever see a house built. When I raised the issue about the Victorian state Labor government shutting down the timber industry, she interjected on me during a matter of public importance or a speech. I was making an earnest point, and she said, 'What's timber got to do with housing?' or thereabouts. Really? That's what houses are built out of. Anyway, I digress. The cost of insurance is up 22 per cent. The cost of electricity is up 20 per cent. Just don't mention that in front of Victorians at the moment who are in darkness. The cost of gas is up 27 per cent. Those opposite don't want gas anyway; they want it eliminated.
The Treasurer comes to the dispatch box during his last budget speech and talks about 'the things we sell overseas'. He can't talk about agriculture or coal or iron ore or gas. He can't dare mention those forbidden words—coal and iron ore and gas. 'The things we sell overseas,' he says. He was the first Treasurer in 25 years not to mention the word 'infrastructure' in his budget speech. That's just shameful. But no wonder he didn't mention it, because just prior to the election—a couple of weeks beforehand—Labor put in place a 90-day review into all of the infrastructure that was being built under the Liberals and Nationals. How long do you reckon that 90-day review took?
I shouldn't start the member for Hume off again, because I won't get another word in edgeways. It was more than 200 days. But that's pretty good for Labor, really, when you think about it—from 90 for 200. That's pretty close for Labor. This isn't pretty close. This is an outrage. Whilst we appreciate that people do need tax breaks, it just goes to show that Labor fibbed again.
]]>Now, after the news broke that Labor would betray its commitment to stage 3 tax cuts I had contact with Matthew Higginson. He's from the town of Coolamon, and I know the shadow Treasurer knows that little town very well, just 40 kilometres from Wagga Wagga. Mr Higginson is a father of seven, soon to be eight—congratulations on that score. He works full time. He's the sole breadwinner for his family—not unusual in the bush. On top of the kids, he also provides financial support for his 75-year-old father, Michael, who lives with him. He says he doesn't receive any family tax benefits or any other financial subsidy or support from the government. That's what he says. He's got a mortgage worth half a million dollars. He was quite prepared to share this with me and quite prepared to share it publicly. He was looking forward to the stage 3 tax cuts to provide him some breathing space against inflation, out of control on Labor's watch, and Labor's cost-of-living crisis—and it is Labor's cost-of-living crisis because it has occurred on Labor's watch.
Matthew is one of the earners between $146,000 and $200,000, who those opposite decided do not deserve the tax break that was previously legislated, previously agreed upon, previously all shared policy. He's one that was promised. People such as Matthew are not ultrawealthy. They're not. All he wants to do is provide for his growing family and pay his dues. He gets that. It's so tough when those opposite are actively setting out to make his life more expensive. People such as Matthew across the country now know that Labor's word means absolutely nothing—absolutely diddly squat. Why should anyone trust the Labor government when they can so blatantly fib and so blatantly breach trust and faith with Australians? Just be up front. That's what Matthew and others want. Just tell us what you're going to do.
It also comes back to the fact that you don't ever believe what Labor say they're going to do. You have to just watch and wait and see what they actually do when they get elected. We all know it's the same old story—say one thing before the election; do completely the opposite after it. This betrayal reminds me of Labor's election commitment to reduce power prices by $275. Hands up all of those who've seen that $275 price reduction in their power bills. I thought so. They're all very busy, looking down at their talking points provided by the Labor dirt unit on their phones. They're probably looking at how many emails they're getting from disillusioned constituents. No-one has seen their power prices come down. They did come down on our watch. In the last two financial years—
It's not rubbish at all, Minister. In the last two financial years of the coalition government, household electricity prices came down—
Honourable members interjecting—
We've got a couple of speakers here: one at the dispatch box and one next to me. But the facts are the same: it was by 8 per cent, and for businesses it was by 10 to 12 per cent. See, we know the figures. We know the figures because our constituents are telling us: 'Yes; power prices did come down under you. Why are they so high under Labor?' They want to know why. They want to know why there's been that breach of faith, that breach of promise, that breach of trust.
Honourable members interjecting—
]]>They can't count on Labor when it comes to much of anything. What we have seen from this Labor government since it came to power in May 2022 is a change to the Murray-Darling Basin, where productive water is going to be taken away from farmers and given to the environment. That's going to cause less food to be grown, that's going to cause local grocery prices to go up and that's going to cause imported food to come into this country at a higher rate than what was otherwise the case. What we've seen is Labor put in place a truckie tax. What we've seen is Labor put in place a biosecurity tax just this week, where Australian farmers are expected to pay for the biosecurity of imported products from overseas. I mean, in what parallel universe would that otherwise occur? It wouldn't happen in any other country. You wouldn't see Australian products going to any other country and their farmers being expected to pay for our food coming in and the biosecurity thereof. It's just ridiculous.
Those opposite declared before the 2022 poll that they would do politics differently. 'Trust us,' they said, 'we'll be more transparent. We'll be more accountable.' Well, it hasn't occurred. It hasn't materialised. The Prime Minister has backflipped on a key election promise, and if he's prepared to backflip on this, what else is he prepared to do? What else is to come? What else is Treasury modelling, as we speak, to hurt the Australian public, to hurt Australian investors, to hurt Australian families and to hurt Australian small businesses? I know it sounds glib and trite, but small businesses are the backbone of the economy. They are, and they're not getting any joy from this government. They're not getting any hope from Labor.
]]>I think that line that Labor keeps using—taking home more of the money they earn—was actually pinched from the coalition's last set of talking points when we were in government, because that is what we stand for and that is what we delivered. It's what we delivered. Indeed, I know when I was the small business minister, the tax rates went to their lowest point since before World War II. Through successive treasurers, we have argued for lower taxes. We have delivered lower taxes. I am proud to be giving a speech alongside the member for Hume, a very good friend of mine and the shadow Treasurer, who, like me, comes to this place and wonders why the Labor members don't talk about the stage 1 and stage 2 tax cuts. I appreciate we are in the stage 3 discussion now, but stages 1 and 2 helped lower and middle-income earners—families, workers.
If you have a look at the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman's website—and I urge all small businesses to utilise that because it is a very good place at which to get information when running your small business—it shows that the number of businesses between zero and 19 employees is a little bit over 2½ million. The total number when you take in the medium-size businesses up to 199 employees is 64,500. If you include large businesses with 200-plus employees, of which there are 4,900, they amount to 2,589,873 businesses. That is a lot of businesses. Those businesses, particularly those small businesses, are helping to run the economy, helping to make Australia's balance of payments, helping to pay the bills to keep the nation's lights on. Although, I should mention that at the moment Victoria is going through a terrible state with power outages. I think that is just the start of worse things to come as we have this crazy push to go away from traditional power sources, but that's another point altogether.
What we are seeing with this debate on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Cost of Living Tax Cuts) Bill 2024 and all the associated arguments with it is a betrayal. It is an absolute outright betrayal by those opposite, particularly the Prime Minister, on Australian voters. Because prior to the election and even after the election, even up to when Treasury decided to model these figures, he and those opposite said that stage 3 tax cuts were enshrined in legislation. They were in law.
]]>If ever there were a diplomatic way to ensure that the Pacific knows that we care—and I know the member for Blair appreciates this too—it is through the PALM scheme. It is through this labour scheme. I say 'labour' with a 'u', labour scheme. When we talk about labour without the 'u'—another bit of a history lesson. I think Labor dropped the 'u' in 1912. For those listening, for those tuning in, they've forgotten about 'you' ever since.
Honourable members interjecting—
I knew that'd get them going! It's like shooting fish in a barrel, really—because they know how true it is. This is the Labor way. They're forcing farmers to offer a minimum of 30 hours a week over four weeks to PALM workers. Farmers will then be forced to offer 30 hours a week every week from 1 July 2024. This is despite agricultural work being seasonal and weather dependent. The member for Braddon knows that. He knows how seasonal and weather dependent the farm he runs and the operation he has in Tasmania are, let alone anywhere else. The new rules do not work for farmers, particularly in the horticulture sector. What if it is too wet to work? We have workers sitting around getting paid for doing nothing.
I appreciate that we have to look after PALM workers; I get that. And exploitation of PALM workers is beyond the pale. I know the member for Bendigo in her contribution, and I'm being a little bit psychic here—not psycho but psychic! I should probably go to that. So I'll say it before she does: you can't exploit workers. No-one should do that. It is so egregious that some people think that those workers are there to be exploited. And, if anybody has any examples of that, please report them, because it is so important. They need to be paid the right amount of money, they need to be given the right conditions and they need to be treated as equals to Australians, because they are.
But you can't also have that impost on farmers, whereby it's going to make them walk away from the PALM scheme. And that is actually happening. It's happening in Queensland. It's happening in my state of New South Wales. It's happening right across the country. Farmers are now determining that the PALM scheme is all too difficult. They can't afford to pay somebody who is not working, and they're walking away from it. You heard from AUSVEG through the member for Nicholls's contribution. That is why this motion is so important. That is why it is important to make sure we get the PALM scheme right.
It's also important that we get agriculture right, and Labor has walked away from our farmers. They've walked away through the changes to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. They're taking productive water out. That's going to force the price of groceries up. It's going to force the amount of imported food up. We know that the best food is grown in Australia by Australian farmers, and we should thank them three times a day every day when we tuck our knees under the table and eat.
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