Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I apologise. It was $517 billion. It is in the budget papers, despite what the Treasurer and others like to say about it. I just put that on the record again. We need to continue to do that. There is another great saying. As a Collingwood man, I'm a big fan of Michael Malthouse, our last premiership coach. Hopefully Craig McRae will be the next. He said, 'If you spend your whole life looking in the rear vison mirror while driving you'll end up hitting the car in front of you,' and that is what we have at the moment. We have a government that continues to talk about the previous government, with the Prime Minister today going back to give us a history lesson from 2014.

At some point you need to lead, you need to take responsibility and you need to stop making excuses. I mean, the Prime Minister himself said, 'Look, it is the job of the Prime Minister to deal with the challenges that Australia faces and not just constantly blame someone else.' He said that on MMM Perth, 16 May 2021. He may have said that in 2021. What did he say in 2022? 'I want to step up to the plate. I will accept responsibility. If I am given the great honour of holding high office as Prime Minister of this country, I won't seek to blame anyone else. I will accept the responsibility that goes with that job.'

The reality is the Australian people know that what he said then is not what he is saying today. He sits at that dispatch box every day in question time offering excuses, talking about the Ukrainian war. Yes, it happened in March last year. He conveniently doesn't talk about his modelling for the $275 power price relief that was commissioned in December 2021. Anyone who knows anything about economic modelling knows that, when a significant input changes, you would change what you say. So 28 times after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia the then opposition leader continued to mislead the Australian public by referencing the $275 price.

This is a prime minister who is out of touch. Last week he talked about it being a great 10 months. We hear many of those opposite talking about how tough it is for their constituents. It is tough in Casey as well. We almost have continued bipartisan support, except for the Prime Minister, who stands here and talks about it being a great 10 months. It hasn't been a great 10 months for Kieran at Hutch and Co. I was there on the weekend, having a chat to him. He is struggling with rising input costs, making tough decisions on whether that business will survive. It hasn't been a great 10 months for a lot of residents in Casey but clearly a great 10 months for this out-of-touch Prime Minister.

It's not just the families of Australia that are being abandoned by this government; it's the small businesses of Australia—not one Dorothy Dixer question from the government backbench to the Minister for Small Business about what she's doing to help small businesses in Australia that are struggling right now. So I thought I'd go and have a little bit of a look at her media releases and see the policies she has released on small business—the heart of the economy, the engine room of Casey and the nation. We've got two releases this year from the Minister for Small Business: one on 1 January talking about mental health support for small business, which is a great initiative. It's very needed—helping them deal with the challenges. But there's another one about helping them transition to energy efficiency, which they definitely need because, as Kieran has shown, their energy prices are going up significantly.

This is government that has abandoned Australian families and has abandoned small businesses. Small businesses are struggling. The minister does not stand at that dispatch box, ever, and talk about small business. I had a look through; I've not seen any visits to small businesses. She's happy to talk about round tables and media releases talking with the ministers for small business from other states, but she's not a voice for small business in this House when they need it. They have been abandoned. The Australian people have been abandoned in this cost-of-living crisis by this out-of-touch government.

See this speech in context