Ben Small (Forrest, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Electoral Matters) Share this | Hansard source

Australians have seen a budget built on Labor lies and broken promises with higher debt, higher taxes, more migrants and fewer homes. It is absolutely the last thing that Australians needed, particularly those Australians who live in regional communities like mine in the south-west of WA. The Prime Minister has sought to sow his politics of division through this budget and divide Australians between those who live in the city and those who live in the country in some sort of sick postcode lottery.

We know that they're racking up spending at an almost unprecedented rate because these budget papers show that this is the highest taxing government in Australian history outside times of war or pandemic. Indeed, the government's own projections show that there is no sign of a surplus until at least the middle of the next decade, and they are sneakily squirrelling away a bunch of spending in off-budget numbers, racking up some $256 billion in total spending on the national credit card. That is money that our kids will have to pay back, so to dress this up as a budget that somehow addresses intergenerational fairness while pushing that credit card debt onto our kids is a disgrace.

With more than $1 trillion in national debt on the horizon and rising beyond that, we are seeing our debt climb towards some $1.2 trillion over the decade, or some $37,000 for every Australian. This is a government addicted to spending more than it saves, and it highlights the fact that there's a big difference between what Labor says and what Labor does. So let's have a little bit of a deep dive into it because the economy is sick.

Growth, on the government's own numbers, will slow to 1.75 per cent, whilst inflation rages in our country at five per cent in the optimistic case, or pushing seven per cent in a more pessimistic case. That means that already Australians are poorer today than they were on the day the Albanese government was elected, and that will only get worse in the years ahead. We have been in a real GDP per capita recession for years, and that will continue on the government's own numbers.

The budget did contain some 130 new measures, reflecting the continued expansion of government, which is pushing some 27.1 per cent of GDP. There's billions of dollars of spending in the short term, despite claims of restraint. But where's the good news for regional Australia? The reality is that regional Australia has been shafted by this budget, and none more so than my community in the south-west of WA. There's $3.7 billion for the Suburban Rail Loop in Victoria, a fanciful project that the Allan government seems determined to do no matter the cost. And we all know why; it's because of the CFMEU and their cartel mates demanding more and more infrastructure funding to be funnelled into the organised crime links that they have. There's some $30 billion in money that's already been siphoned off by organised crime and the bikies in Victoria, and yet more billions are being pumped in by this government.

However, is there $25 million for the Busselton Margaret River Airport? Not a cent. Margaret River Hospital has been unchanged for some 25 years, despite the population surge around it and the huge numbers of tourists that flock to that part of the world every year. Any money for the upgrade there? Not a cent. Indeed, the only infrastructure funding in the regional budget statement for Western Australia is a $4 million road. It is a disgrace that the Prime Minister and his government pretend to be a friend of Western Australia whilst handing down a budget of betrayal, built on Labor lies and broken promises, that leaves Western Australia, particularly regional Western Australia, high and dry.

The reality is that Australians are going to pay more for this spending spree. They're going to pay through bracket creep, inflation raging at between five and seven per cent, as well as the policy changes that are dressed up as tax reform but are really a tax grab. They expose the central lie of this budget. The Treasurer has claimed that this budget rebalances the taxation revenue in Australia from salaries and wages towards assets and investment income. However, his own budget papers show the share of personal income tax rising over the decade ahead. This is a budget that is shamelessly a tax grab and attempts no serious tax reform at all. They rely heavily on banking and some $37 billion in projected NDIS savings, which are backloaded and uncertain. And, indeed, in regional communities like mine, where we've already seen slashing to things like regional travel allowance, it seems that those who live outside a city will bear the cost of that disproportionately. But that increase in debt means more taxpayer money diverted into interest payments rather than delivery of services, especially the delivery of services in regional WA, where we have been ignored for too long.

So the major changes—including capital gains tax discounting being adjusted to an inflation model, restricting negative gearing to new builds and increasing the taxes on trusts—target aspiration. Tuesday 12 May 2026 will go down as the day that aspiration died in Australia, and unfortunately people like my farmers, small-business people, fishermen and other agricultural operators are the ones who will pay the price of this.

The reality is that some 13 million Australians have been promised a $250 carrot from 2028. The bad news is that, with inflation raging, the benefit of that will be gobbled up in real terms in just six months from today. That means Australians are poorer today than they were on the day the Albanese government came to power, and that situation will only get worse from here.

We've seen immense pressure on rents and house prices across the south-west of WA. The reasons for that are obvious to anyone who has bothered to look: too many people have been welcomed to Australia too quickly, and the standards for those migrants coming to Australia has been too low at a time when we are delivering fewer and fewer houses. In Western Australia, the number of dwelling completions has decreased every quarter for the last year. More migrants arriving in a country and a state with fewer houses being built is obviously pushing up prices. It is obviously pushing up rents. And that is why, in car parks next to the Bunbury Outer Ring Road, there are things resembling shantytowns now, with more than 100 people living in them—all with cars, all with jobs and some, shamefully, with kids forced to live alongside them in their cars. This is a housing crisis, and this government is now entering its fifth year running this country.

Those opposite talk about what went before. It's time we saw some accountability and some ownership from the bloke who promised Australians that he would be the guy who would show up, who would take responsibility and be accountable, but I guess that was just another promise broken. Another time that the Prime Minister look down the barrel of a camera and promised the Australian people one thing before the election, only to do something completely different the day after.

This is a budget of betrayal. It is built on Labor lies. It contains higher debt, higher taxes and higher spending. It also promises fewer homes and more migrants. It does nothing for the people of regional Western Australia, the people that I am fortunate enough to come to this place to fight for. Those opposite blame the war in Iran for all of it. It is a disgrace, because at the same time the Australian Public Service here in Canberra has grown to more than 217,000 staff. The budget includes funding for some 700 people for the new National Environmental Protection Agency. At the same time, the government's promising to cut red tape and get projects moving in states like mine. However, four months after the passage of the EPBC reforms, Minister Watt travelled to Perth to announce there would be eight months of discussion to land an MOU by the end of the year. If we really had a one-stop shop for approvals, to get projects moving in WA, we certainly wouldn't need 700 people at a cost of many hundreds of million of dollars here in a new Commonwealth environmental protection agency. This budget is a shameful betrayal of regional Western Australians.

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