Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

It is so important for the next generation of Australians that this parliament understands the importance of fiscal prudence, because, when it comes down to it, when governments borrow from the future what they do is not just prime the economy today but indebt future generations. They then increase taxes on future generations. But they then add on inflation today. When you see an uptick in inflation, as people are seeing right now—and we saw that in the data this week—that is because this government is spending too much money. State and federal governments simply can't contain themselves, and, when they do that, you pay the price today, you pay the price tomorrow, your children pay the price, and your children and your grandchildren will continue to pay the price into future—all because they can't manage money today. But, in addition, they can't figure out and they're not prepared to invest in the reform this country desperately needs to build out the future economic growth that it desperately needs right now.

It is hard; I am not going to try and pretend otherwise. But people elect governments to take responsibility, to stand up to the moment and to choose to be part of building Australia's future—and they are not stepping up to the occasion. Their only solution is to try and spend their way out of their present problems and indebt future generations in the process.

It's even worse than that, because the legacy of where we are now is only likely to compound. While we've had this government engaging in victory laps every step of the way to date, it has not ended the problems of inflation. We've had the Treasurer out there saying: 'The problem's over; we've reached the peak. It's all over.' The data is increasingly showing that's not the case, and in fact, because they haven't addressed the root cause of the problems that are now confronting the economy, they are going to compound. We have a problem of centralised wage fixing, and that is going to make it harder to get economic growth. Because of that, it's going to be harder for Australians to get jobs. When you have centralised wage fixing, when you have the problem of low productivity, that only leads to one thing, which is higher inflation, higher interest rates and higher unemployment. That is a disaster for Australia today and it is a disaster for Australia into the future, and for future generations. This stuff matters because we are all going to live with the consequences into the future.

Now is the time for the adults to stand up and take responsibility, but instead what we have, and we just saw it in question time only a few moments ago—the Prime Minister, every time he was confronted with a difficult question, deflected and either said things were above politics or tried to run interference for his ministers who couldn't answer questions. That's what's so disappointing. Whatever I think of the current prime minister or of his government, there is a simple reality: he has been given a very large majority and entrusted by the Australian people with an opportunity to do something significant. And, at the moment, they are not meeting that trust.

My hope is that they will actually do something great for this country, because the Australian people need them to do something great for this country. Instead, what they're doing is creating future subprime problems in our mortgage market. They are making it harder for future generations to be able to go and buy their own home. They're taking money that younger generations desperately need for savings, to put towards their deposit for their first home, and putting it into savings accounts, while the evidence increasingly shows that people have too much money in their super but do not have enough for their savings for their first home. Their priorities are wrong, because every bit of their decision-making is focused on how they can empower themselves and control Australians, not empower Australians.

There is one other matter that I want to raise, and I'm saying this with generosity. During the 90-second section before question time, I asked to table some documents. They include an ANU study that focused on the homophobia directed towards politicians—which, by the way, included homophobia directed towards people like Senator Wong. I asked for leave, with generosity, to table that study as well as other documents, and I'm again asking politely to table those documents. I seek leave to table the documents.

Leave granted.

Thank you.

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