Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Right across my electorate last night, people were eagerly watching the budget to see what was in it for them. The good news is that there's $250 in the budget for them, but the $250 doesn't come soon. It doesn't come this week, doesn't come next month and doesn't come before the end of the financial year or next year. It actually comes in the second half of 2028, where, if you count on your fingers whether or not that is going to be after or before the next federal election, you would comfortably say that it's going to be after.

The budget was riddled with more broken promises. Broken promise after broken promise is what this government has delivered with absolute consistency. Remember the $275 electricity relief we were going to get, espoused on over 200 occasions? Electricity prices are soaring 40 per cent across the nation. It's out of control. Labor also promised $43 billion to help housing construction, but, when you go and have a chat to the guys at Housing Industry Australia, when we were in office, we were building on average between 200,000 and 220,000 houses a year. Under this government, with their failed settings, it's 180,000.

They've set this forecast of 1.2 million homes to be built out into the future. It'll be yet another broken promise. For them to reach that target, mathematically, they'd have to have been doing around 220,000 now on average. With the falling in the numbers, they've got to be doing around 240,000 houses a year. That's higher than any year of housing growth ever in this country. You cannot trust Labor. Remember, 'My word is my bond' and, 'We won't be touching stage 3'? We got stage 2.5 tax cuts, where Labor banked $26 billion into the outward years. You just cannot trust Labor.

Labor are the highest-spending government in 40 years outside the pandemic. The reason that they are the highest-spending government is that one of the line items is the most bloated public service. No other country in the world has more public servants per capita than Australia. It's 15 public servants for every 100 people. It's more than any country in the OECD. They'll tell you that they've banked $221 billion in savings, but they've actually spent $324 billion. This is a deficit, and you can't trust Labor.

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