Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) | Hansard source

Today I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Cost of Living Tax Cuts) Bill 2024. The story here is that Australians put their trust in the Prime Minister nearly two years ago. They trusted his word that electricity would be cheaper. They trusted his word that he would change our country for the better. They trusted his word that he would deliver cheaper mortgages, medicines and electric vehicles. They trusted him when he said, 'My word is my bond.' The Prime Minister looked Australians in the eye and repeatedly misled them. As each day passed, he and the Treasurer plotted and plotted to break their word. The Prime Minister and Treasurer said they hadn't changed their position on the stage 3 tax cuts despite asking Treasury to look at other options last December. They made a commitment more than 100 times to the Australian people.

Australians can see through the Prime Minister's misleading words now. They won't be deceived. They can see the deception, the magician's trick, that he is trying to perform, because, despite promises for a better future, Australians currently find themselves grappling with the highest interest rates since 2011 and rising costs of food, electricity, gas, mortgages and rents. Families' disposable incomes are going down, which is putting pressure on household budgets. It means that families are having to make choices between fuel and food, between school fees, private health cover and recreational activities—maybe paying for sporting uniforms or paying for registration fees for their kids to play sport.

This cost-of-living crisis has consequences for the Australian people, and the Albanese government has been distracted. Last year it spent the whole year distracted by the Voice referendum, a very divisive exercise by the Prime Minister which cost $450 million and only served to divide the nation and deliver a resounding no to his plan. Meanwhile, Australians are now thousands of dollars worse off as a result of this government's economic mismanagement. While Labor claims their changes to the stage 3 tax cut legislation will be 'broadly revenue neutral', it's going to cost an extra $1.3 billion over the next four years and $28 billion over the next decade. An average income earner is only going to receive just over $15 a week more under Labor's tax cuts, hardly enough for the cheapest item on the menu in a cafe in Marrickville or a restaurant in Mandurah, where I live. This is less than one per cent of their annual wage and returns just 10c for every dollar that they have lost to cost-of-living pressures during Labor's first 18 months in office.

Before the election the Prime Minister promised a $275 reduction in power bills, no changes to superannuation taxes, an increase in real wages, no changes to franking credits, cheaper mortgages and no changes to the stage 3 tax cuts. The Prime Minister has broken all of these promises, so what's next? Is negative gearing next on the government's hit list? The Prime Minister and the Treasurer can't give a straight answer when they're asked to rule out their promise on negative gearing. The Treasurer was asked on 29 January about the plan to make changes to negative gearing and he said, 'Labor wasn't considering it.' That's what they said 100 times about the stage 3 tax cuts. The finance minister was asked the same question on the Today show and said, 'We have no plans to do that.' That's what they said about the stage 3 tax cuts. The truth here is that the Australian people can't trust a word from this Prime Minister or his economic team.

The opposition won't break its promises. We won't desert Australians who've been promised something. We're committed to lower, simpler and fairer taxes, which is why we're not standing in the way of this legislation. We acknowledge that there are tax cuts in this legislation, and we want to see the Australian people benefit from those, but we're committed to aspiration. We can promise Australians that we'll go to the next election with an aspirational tax reform package that is in keeping with our commitment to giving Australians more of their own money back. It will be a distinct choice at the next election. It will be a choice between aspiration on the one hand and redistribution on the other. Australians can trust our word.

Debate adjourned.

House adjourned at 20:1 4

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