Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) | Hansard source

Let's use eagles as a comparison then. We have not seen the eagles soar from the previous speaker. In fact, we have heard a very weak defence of the Albanese government. Australians are living the consequences of the Albanese government's active inflation agenda, and at 10.30 today we ticked over a new milestone: $1 trillion of public debt.

Despite every single spin, every single narrative and every single interjection we're getting from the members presently, it doesn't change some simple facts. Through inflation and mineral resources, this government has seen a $400 billion windfall. What's their answer? What's their solution? 'Let's just spend it, stoke the inflation, tax the inflation and then go on and continue to spend the inflation in a vicious cycle so Australians get poorer.' The $1 trillion of debt is the reason why the prices are rising at the supermarket.

The successive failures of this government—despite the boasts of the Treasurer and the Prime Minister at the dispatch box during question time about how Australians have never had it any better—mean that the Australian lived reality is very different, with rising rents and the biggest collapse in living standards in the advanced world. Let's remind the House again about that again—the biggest collapse of living standards in the advanced world under the Albanese government. They are living Reagan's dictum, which says:

If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

The government simply does not understand what leads to growth, what creates opportunity and what improves the living standards of Australians. But there is one thing we do know, and that is that this government is addicted to spending and to inflation. As inflation junkies, they're always looking for their next hit. That's why the $1 trillion of debt is so important, not just because today's debt is tomorrow's taxes—though it is. It's a constant injection into the economy, which is stoking inflation and which means that young Australians are going to be left with bigger debt and higher taxes, and they're going to have a corrosion of their living standards every step of the way.

What Australia needs now more than anything is change. We need a change where we see a future with young Australians who are not looking at their shoes in despondency but looking at the horizon with hope. That is absolutely why we have a plan to get—

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