Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me pleasure to speak on this matter of public importance, because it is indeed a matter of public importance. I represent an electorate that is not a rich one. I'm a worker. They talk about workers not being on this side of the chamber, but I would like to point out that there are workers on this side of the chamber—and I enjoyed getting on the tools over the weekend. While I've sat quietly here in the chamber and not interjected, I have listened to no answers. There have been lots of criticisms and lots of attempts to try to make the Australian people feel that their lot in life is tough, but there have been no answers. There is no doubt that there are people struggling out there in Australian society, people who are working hard and paying their bills and trying to provide for their families.

But looking at the history of Australia, we enjoy a prosperity that many generations of Australians have not enjoyed, and I think that needs to be stated. It needs to be stated that we are a very prosperous nation. The prosperity is there because of the hard work of Australians. Money does not grow on trees, and the wealth of Australians results from the individual pursuits of people. They get up, they get out of bed early and go to work, they work hard, they pay their taxes and they contribute to the society. That is ultimately what creates wealth. When you create individual wealth, you ultimately create a wealthy Australia. What we've heard from the discussions today is attempts to knock those who have created individual wealth. This appears to be a great strategy of the Labor Party, but it ultimately undermines the pursuits of individuals. Let me say that again: it is the pursuits of individuals that collectively creates the wealth of Australia.

I want to see more people become wealthy. I want to see people who get out of bed and work hard be rewarded for that. I want those who work hard to pay less tax, and that's why we're proposing a tax cut, hopefully, in the future. I want to see the people who take a risk and invest receive the benefits of that. We should not be a society that knocks those people. We should not say: 'Oh, they're earning too much money. We've got to take the money off them and give it to someone else.' We should say, 'Good for you,' and if we do that, it means you pay a little bit more tax into the pot, meaning there is more money to fund the things that we need to fund in our society, such as welfare.

We hear a lot of talk about the cost of living going up. I have got to say that the responsibility for a lot of those cost-of-living bills—the bills that come across households—still sit with other governments. I think of rates, sitting with our local governments. I think of electricity, predominantly the management of electricity in Victoria by the Victorian government. I think of car registration, which is something that people struggle to pay, which is the state governments. I think of health administration, the money that we, the federal government, give to the states, and the states collect tax and administer health. That is a cost on people and it is largely run by state governments, and many of the state governments in Australia are Labor governments.

I also think that the discussion here isn't putting much forward thought into the implications that Labor are proposing for future generations. I heard the previous speaker talk about how people are concerned that their children haven't got as much opportunity. The best thing we can do to ensure the opportunity for the children of Australia is to not leave them with a national debt—to not leave them with the liability to pick up the tab for the current people who are running this country. When the Howard government finished in this place, they finished in this place with a surplus—money in the bank. We then had years of Labor, which left us with a deficit, and it has taken us quite a while to start to curb off the trajectory. Eventually, we will get back to surplus.

In contrast, there was not one savings measure suggested on the other side of the chamber in this whole matter of public importance debate. So, ultimately, what we're talking about here is an attack on people who want to get out of bed and work harder. It's an attack on the future children of Australia. The only answer they have to restore wage growth, the only answer they have to restore prosperity, is to borrow more money to put more debt on future Australians. I am not the sort of politician who can do that. I am responsible. People on my side are responsible. Do not trust them on the other side. They have no answers. They have talked all this afternoon—not one suggestion on how to make things better.

See this speech in context