Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2025-2026. Of course the coalition will support the passage of these appropriation bills through the parliament. We would not be blocking supply. We are talking here about an additional $12.7 billion to come from the Consolidated Revenue Fund, broken up into three parts: $9.1 billion for ordinary services, $3.5 billion for non-ordinary services and $9.2 million for parliamentary departments. But it's very important I make this point. While the coalition will not stand in the way of the appropriation bills, the government should not take this to mean that we support the government's ongoing spending.

Spending is out of control in this country, and it is hurting everyday Australians. I am one of many MPs—I dare say right across the chamber—who are dealing with mums and dads, senior citizens and young people who are hurting right now, and they have been hurting for some years. For the first time in memory we have living standards dropping at a much faster pace than that of any other peer nation. Real wages have gone backwards under the Albanese government. The average worker now has less power purchase in their salary. This is the problem. Everyday Australians are hurting.

We all know the impact of higher prices. The Minister for Energy is across the table here. He knows that energy prices have gone up by, I believe, around 40 per cent. The minister is not disagreeing with that—40 per cent under this minister, under this government. This is the problem. It just so happens that this minister is here. If we had another minister here, we'd talk about his or her portfolio. It doesn't matter which portfolio; prices are going up. And this is a government that came to power on the promise that it was going to get prices down. I remember that campaign vividly. They were screaming that prices were going up and that they, the Labor Party, were going to get prices down, and yet prices have soared.

We have mums and dads making trade-off decisions about whether they're going to allow the kids to get new pairs of school shoes and textbooks. Can they pay for that take-out once a week anymore? We've got senior citizens making a decision about whether they turn the air con on or eat. This is what's happening in our country. For the very first time, we have a generation entering the workforce which is going to be poorer than their parents, which breaches a longstanding pact in this country where one generation leaves the next generation more prosperous. That's going to go, and why is that? Because we have the Albanese government which cannot control its spending. This is the highest-spending government in 40 years, outside a pandemic.

The volume of fiscal stimulus being poured into the Australian economy is equivalent to that of the GFC. That's how bad it is, and are we amidst an enormous international economic shock to justify this? No, we are not. This explains why we have seen interest rates go up, because inflation has skyrocketed. The Prime Minister told the Australian people about this time last year, as did the Treasurer, that they had tamed the beast, the dragon, of inflation. But had they done so? No, they hadn't. The RBA now forecasts inflation to peak at about 4.2 per cent. Let us not forget that the target is 2.5 per cent. It's going to hit 4.2 per cent. Why? Because this government keeps pouring more money into the economy and the economy is running at the speed limit. The RBA governor made that very clear when she spoke about the RBA's recent decision to increase interest rates.

Private and public demand has hit the speed limit. When that happens and when the economy doesn't have enough supply to satisfy all the demand—all the things, the goods and services, that people want to buy—the government has a decision to make. The government can either become a smaller government and allow households and businesses to grow and enjoy that supply or the government can say: 'We know best. We need to be bigger,' and they can push households and push businesses out of the way. This government has chosen the latter. This is the crowd-out effect. The government, due to its overspending, is crowding out opportunities for the private sector.

We've had the Treasurer in denial, as he always is, that recent interest-rate rises are due to government spending. I cannot find one credible economist in the country which agrees with the Treasurer of Australia on that count—not one. The Treasurer has cowardly hidden behind the governor of the Reserve Bank by claiming that because she has not explicitly called out the fiscal recklessness of the government then the government fiscal policy must be fine. Name an RBA governor that would ever do such a thing. As an institution, the RBA never picks a fight with the government of the day on fiscal policy. In fact, the governor made it very clear she does not comment on fiscal policy. But the Treasurer wants to take her silence as some endorsement of his fiscal policy, and what fiscal policy is that? Well, the fiscal policy is typically embedded within the budget strategy. The strategy is meant to outline some rules.

Ever since Peter Costello introduced the Charter of Budget Honesty, governments have meant to have rules which contain government spending. So, when all the ministers sit around the cabinet table or they go to the Expenditure Review Committee, they are locked in to a set of rules to stop their spending. Every single Treasurer has had these rules—they're quantifiable rules—except this treasurer under the Albanese government. His strategy reads like a word salad. It's just words. There is not one number in it, and this is why you have had minister after minister rocking up, talking to the Prime Minister and the Treasurer and getting tick, tick, tick—'Go spend! Go spend! Go spend!'

The more money they pour into the economy—when you hit the speed limit, the RBA has to come in and pull money out of the economy. Will they stop? No, they won't stop. We know they won't stop, because the Treasurer will not admit his responsibility. If you have a Treasurer who refuses to take responsibility, you can be sure that he will not be capable of fixing the problem. Right across portfolios, they are doing this. To be very clear, the coalition has not been criticising the government where spending in budgets increases due to automatic pressures. If Australians need more health care or education, you don't hear the coalition complaining about those pressures. That's what the expression is—'pressures'. No; far from it.

But what we do criticise is discretionary spending decisions taken by the government separate from those pressures for which the government has not found room in the budget. To give you an indication of the magnitude of this problem, this financial year alone there has been around $50 billion of discretionary spending that the government has failed to find offsets to pay for. Again, we do not criticise any government for making their own priorities when it comes to spending. Indeed, a government has a right to decide what its spending priorities are, but with rights always come commensurate responsibilities. In this case, the responsibility is to find room in the budget to pay for it.

I go back to the everyday Australian family. As Australians sit around kitchen tables and work out their budgets, they know that, if they want little Johnny or little Mary to go to theatre lessons, music lessons or sport, they've got to find an extra few hundred bucks a fortnight. And if they can't afford it? Families are making trade-off decisions. They're cutting back on things. Why is it that the Australian people are doing the right thing while the Australian government refuses to adopt that same principle of living within your means? When they don't live within their means, they have to go after more money to pay for their prolific spending. Do you know who they're coming after? They're coming after everyday Australians.

We have never seen personal income taxes as high as what we see today. Since this government has come in, the average, everyday worker is paying an additional $4,000 a year extra in personal income taxes.

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