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

I have seen and heard it all now—a motion about living standards in the House, and the Treasurer has got Labor MPs in here today trying to redefine what living standards are. Aussies know what living standards are, and they know that they are lower today than the day that this Prime Minister took office. Indeed, real wages have fallen by three per cent, and they are still falling. But these aren't economic statistics that we debate at roundtables and productivity summits like those opposite. These are the experiences of Australians today who are poorer than the day that this government took office. Australians know that every time they leave a supermarket, they walk out of a cafe or they open their power bill. Australians are being hit by a trifecta from this mob. Their living standards are down, their taxes are up, and their interest rates are high and going higher. It makes it harder and harder for Aussies to make ends meet. That is why we are in here today talking about the living standards that Australians experience, not trying to redefine what Australians know to be true.

In recent days, in the wake of a budget of betrayal built on Labor lies, we've seen the government out there trying to defend the indefensible, along with their mates the teals, who are very close to coming out, I see, loud and proud as a party today. They are arguing that it's the tech sector alone that should be exempt from this government's wicked assault on capital gains in this country. I'd remind the teals and the government of where the wealth and prosperity in this nation comes from. It is from the mining sector in Western Australia. It is high time that they remember that the big holes today that are spitting out the cash that pays for Medicare, the NDIS and our defences started as small holes funded by mum-and-dad investors 20, 30 or even 40 years ago.

Western Australia's mining and resources sector contributes more to the national economy than any single other industry in this nation. Literally billions in GST, company tax and income tax comes from the incredibly well-paid workers in the Pilbara donned in fluoro. I know that because I was one not that long ago. They are the funds that prop up the Commonwealth budget that would be unrecognisable without it. WA's net contribution to the Commonwealth is more than $13,000 per person, which is 19 times higher than the next contributor, New South Wales, which is chipping in $700 per person. Every other state and territory in this nation has their hand out. They have their hand out at the same time as living standards are declining.

Here's the kicker: with the assault on capital gains tax making the investment of mums and dads in shares ever less attractive, is it really the case that we're going to see founders hooking up a caravan, driving into the desert and hiring a drill rig with perhaps the last of the money from that register of shareholders—those mums, dads and aspirational Australians who have backed them in, hoping that this tenement, this time, might well be the one? Companies like Fortescue, Northern Star, Mineral Resources, Pilbara Minerals and Liontown were all speculative miners funded by mum-and-dad investors who understood the risk and took it anyway. They are the companies that are building the prosperity that underwrites our standard of living—a standard of living that is declining under this government.

Why is it that this basic question of fairness seems to escape both the government and our new teal party here? A tech founder in Sydney or Melbourne might well risk everything to build a start-up, and the political left falls over itself to praise their entrepreneurial courage. But when an Australian does exactly the same thing, hitches up a caravan, drives a thousand kays into the desert and risks everything in the hope of discovering the next great ore body, suddenly they don't deserve the same recognition, the same discount, the same maths and the same basic fairness. At the end of the day, these are folks who should not be treated as second-class citizens just because their factory floor happens to be in the red dust of the Pilbara and not in the co-working spaces of Surrey Hills.

Western Australia built the prosperity of this nation on the back of risk-takers backed by ordinary Australians who wanted a higher standard of living for themselves and were prepared to put their money on the line for it. The Greens, the teals and the government should think very carefully before taxing that out of existence.

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