Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

are going through the roof. There you go! Costs are going through the roof—you're 100 per cent right, Member for Wannon. There's higher rents, higher insurance costs and higher costs at the supermarket. It doesn't matter where you go. And, of course, there's higher petrol costs as well. At every step we have a problem, and the government is in a form of denial.

But what we've seen this week is an active attempt to deliberately distract from what the Treasurer's legacy has been to date. He now talks about international factors, like inflation begins in Tehran, not in Canberra, like everything was rosy until Sunday. There's just one little problem. We're actually talking about the December quarter accounts, and I can assure you that wasn't a problem back in December.

Australians are doing it tough, and this government is contributing at every step of the way. The legacy is extremely clear. On a per capita basis, the Australian economy remains poorer than in March 2022. According to the latest figures from the OECD, Australia—let's just take a dramatic pause—has experienced the worst fall in living standards in the OECD. This is a disgrace. Australia has made no progress in living standards against the OECD average by 10 percentage points. They're down 10 percentage points. We have real wages falling—two per cent lower today than when Labor took office and falling right now. Remember when Labor members came into this chamber and talked about real wages moving? Remember that? I think they even did dances to that. I can assure you the Australian people aren't dancing to that tune anymore, because they know that inflation is outstripping their wages and they are going backwards. They feel it when they get their pay cheque. They feel it when they get to the supermarket checkout. They know just what they're getting less of. They know they're getting less for the value of their dollar.

The RBA expects real wages to continue to fall all year, to December 2026. I'm sure there'll be a reason that will be this side of the chamber's fault! I'm sure they'll have an excuse about why, four years out from government, somehow we are in a situation where we're responsible for that. When is the Prime Minister actually going to appoint a Treasurer who's going to take responsibility? I know he likes to ritually humiliate the Treasurer, whether it's rolling over unrealised capital gains or when he's got him out there floating new taxes and he'll force him to roll that over. When is the Prime Minister going to appoint a Treasurer who's going to take responsibility? Right now the Treasurer is out there socialising to increase taxes on the Australian people while they'll do nothing about the $15 billion that has gone to organised crime through the CFMEU Labor cartel. The idea that this Treasurer and this Prime Minister and this government are somehow going to tax Australians more because they couldn't be bothered following up public money going to organised crime through the CFMEU Labor cartel is the most bizarre expression and sentence I have ever had to give. But this is the lived reality of Australians under the Albanese government.

We had the national accounts. It was the December quarter, so it was after the election. They won that election, we will acknowledge that. In fact, they got a record majority, so you'd think they'd take a little bit of ownership in the process. But what did it show? It showed the second quarter in a row in which public sector demand growth outpaced private sector demand—0.9 per cent versus 0.4 per cent. That's why we have a small-business cost crisis. Think about all those Australians right now who have backed themselves in where they're self-employed in small businesses or family businesses, and their profitability margins are thinning and thinning and thinning. We know what has happened under this government: as they've thinned, eventually they've gotten to the point where they can't go on. When that happens, it isn't just the small business that goes, it's the livelihoods that go with it. That is what Australians in small business are living right now. That is why we have 41,000 small businesses that have collapsed under this government. I can tell you, the Albanese government's been betting on Australia failing—that's certainly true. They haven't just been betting on it, they've been delivering on it.

The Albanese government has overseen record small business insolvencies, and it was not just a record last financial year. I'm going to give you a hot tip, Deputy Speaker—they're on track to deliver another record this year. The idea that any Labor member could stand in this chamber and get up and defend their record when you have 41,000 livelihoods thrown to the trash heap, where you have record small-business insolvencies—at least 14,000 last financial year and 14,000 this year—real wages going backwards while costs soar into the horizon!

Australians know what this government is doing. Australians have woken up. They know that this government has no concern for their future. They are not taking the action needed to build a better Australia. But I want to finish where I started. Australians need hope, and there is a pathway to hope. We can have a coalition government that is focused on mobilising the economy, the ingenuity and the capital of this nation to build a better country for every Australian. We can build the homes Australians need. We can get wages up again. We can keep costs down. We can make energy cheaper. We can build a better future where the next generation of Australians clock their eyes to the horizon and think that this country is still an optimistic and proud nation. I can assure you, Deputy Speaker, for the next two and a bit years, we are going to fight for that, hell for leather, every single day.

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