Cameron Caldwell (Fadden, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Housing) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes the Government has repeatedly broken promises to Australians on cost of living, energy prices, and housing affordability, leaving families worse off financially; and

(2) calls on the Government to take responsibility for its broken promises and deliver living standards and ease pressure on Australian households.

It's been 13 days since the Labor government handed down their budget, and the one question that continues to resonate throughout Australia is, 'Can we trust this prime minister?' The answer is to be found in the track record of this government over the last four years. This Labor government is living on a boulevard of broken promises. Firstly, they promised they would ease the cost of living. Secondly, they promised to reduce power prices. Thirdly, before the last election it was made very clear that they were not going to make changes to the taxation on the capital gains tax and negative gearing. Four years of this Labor government, and we have a litany of broken promises that are ultimately making life much harder for Australians than it needs to be.

Since this Labor government has been elected, Australians have suffered the worst fall in living standards in the advanced economies around the world. Inflation is raging out of control, at 4.6 per cent, and the recent budget papers project it's going to rise to five per cent. The worst thing about inflation is it is compounding; it just goes up and up. That's five per cent on five per cent on 4.5 per cent on 4.5 per cent. That's why the cost of everything is going up under this Labor government.

The first and most memorable broken promise of this government was clearly the promise prior to the 2022 election, in relation to reducing power bills by $275—a promise which they have not only broken but smashed, because power prices have gone in the other direction by about 30 per cent over that time. The Minister for Climate Change and Energy is more interested in globetrotting the world than he is about your power bill at home. He's measuring his success by the stamps he gets on his passport when we know the true measure of his failure is the power bills you receive at home. We've got small businesses and families that are suffering because their power bills are so big that you simply can't jump over them.

As I said, the latest budget from 13 days ago crystallised this government as the highest taxing government Australia has ever seen. There's one reason why taxes are necessary for this government. It's because they've run out of their own money. What does a Labor government do when it runs out of money? It comes after yours. That's right, ladies and gentlemen. Labor is chasing more tax so they can feed their spending habits. The budget from 13 days ago ultimately delivered broken promises, higher taxes, more debt and fewer homes. When we consider that last promise that was made—that solemn pledge prior to the last election that they would not change the taxation arrangements for negative gearing and capital gains tax—what did they do in that recent budget? They broke that promise too, and Australians are rightfully questioning whether they can trust this treasurer. They're rightfully asking whether they can trust this prime minister.

In fact, no sector has been left unharmed by this budget. It doesn't matter whether you're over 65 and you're now losing your private health insurance rebate, whether you're a young person wanting to create a startup or whether you're just hoping to get a home. Having now read that the changes in taxation are going to lead to—you guessed it—fewer homes being built, I get stories like this from Zoe in Pimpama in my electorate: she served our country in the Navy for 26 years; she's now caring for her autistic adult son, her autistic teenage daughter and her elderly parents; and quite frankly the numbers are not adding up for Zoe. She's like many Australians. She's sending her children to school with cereal in ziplock bags for lunch and she's living off food bank donations. This is what's happening under this Labor government. This is the human cost of this government's failures.

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