Tom Venning (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is the most socialist budget since Whitlam. Labor's budget fails South Australia. It brings more debt, higher taxes and no real cost-of-living relief to our country towns. It cuts infrastructure spending—come and drive on a regional road or find a jetty which isn't closed. We are facing a decade of deficits and over $1 trillion in debt. Where is intergenerational fairness there? Families from Marion Bay to Marla and everywhere in between will pay the price.

Inflation is currently at 4.6 per cent and will soon go up to five per cent. We are the laughing stock of the developed world. It's higher than in Canada, Germany, the United States, France and the United Kingdom. The average family is $32,000 worse off. This is not the country we know and love, and the people in regional South Australia are feeling the pinch more than most.

Labor's new socialist taxes hit the very people that keep our towns going—small-business owners. They even hid a 30 per cent death tax in the budget as a nice little bit of salt in the wound. This budget hurts our regions and makes life outside the city limits even harder. We need a government that backs our regions, not one that taxes them into oblivion. We need a government that starts putting Australians first. We need to axe the tax and cut the lies.

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