I move:

That this House:

(1) condemns the Government for failing to get inflation under control;

(2) notes Australians have now faced a sixteenth interest rate rise, placing further pressure on families, mortgage holders and small businesses;

(3) recognises the rising cost of everyday essentials under the Government including:

(a) housing up 23.9 per cent;

(b) electricity up 37.0 per cent; and

(c) insurance up 43.3 per cent;

(4) calls out the Government's high spending, with spending at its highest share of the economy since 1986-87 outside the pandemic; and

(5) calls on the Government to rein in spending, reduce inflationary pressure and ease the cost of living burden on Australian families and small businesses.

I move this motion today on inflation. It's something I've spoken about in this place many, many times, but I feel that, if we keep repeating it, it might sink in that this is actually a significant issue in this country at the moment. It goes to what a courageous government is all about, because this requires honest conversations with the Australian people. I say that after experiencing, along with the people that I represent on the southern Gold Coast, 16 interest rate rises under this government. We have a situation where the government are failing to get inflation under control, and there's no mystery as to how they do it. It's not as if there is no ability to do so. We're seeing the cost of housing up 23.9 per cent, the cost of electricity up 37 per cent and the cost of insurance up 43.3 per cent. These are metrics that are concerning all Australians, and they're concerning them because they're seeing them in their bills. It's at a time when the government itself is spending at record levels. We're seeing spending by the government at its highest share of the economy outside the pandemic since 1986 or 1987. So this motion calls upon the government to reconsider its approach, it calls upon the government to develop a sense of courage in the way it governs this country, and it calls on the government to ultimately rein in spending, reduce inflationary pressure and ease the cost-of-living burden on Australian families and small business.

The situation we find ourselves in as a country reminds me of a quote by Ronald Reagan when he was the President of the United States. He said that the problem is not that people are taxed too little; the problem is that government spends too much. That is exactly what we're seeing now, because at the end of the day I'm not quite convinced that the government understands that there are actually only two sources of money that governments can access whenever they want to fund further expenditure: they can either borrow the savings of taxpayers across this country or tax them more. Those are the two ways that government can increase its expenditure, and, on both of those fronts, Australians, quite frankly, just can't afford it right now. The government can't pretend that fiscal policy has nothing to do with inflation because, while households have been expected to tighten their belts, we're seeing Commonwealth spending having continued at historically high levels. We're now seeing a situation where the next generation is saddled with over $1 trillion of debt while the budget is still forecast to remain in deficit for decades.

There is a fundamental difference in the approach between those on that side of the chamber and those on this side of the chamber, Labor's answer is higher taxes and more spending, and the coalition's approach is to have that honest and courageous conversation with the Australian people to cut waste, to repair the budget and to give Australians more of their own money back. We've demonstrated that that can actually be done in a clear and coherent manner, because we have identified $31 billion in on-budget savings over four years, and that is even after the funding of our $20 billion Tax Back Guarantee, which will give more Australians the ability to keep more of what they earn. Those measures will still leave the budget $22 billion better off over the four years, and that matters because responsible spending is not just about rebalancing Canberra's books; reducing unnecessary government spending actually reduces pressure on inflation and interest rates.

Our proposed fiscal discipline on the coalition side includes restraining government spending growth to below economic growth, which we are not seeing at the moment under this government; it includes restoring a binding tax cap so we're not transferring the burden from the government to the taxpayer; and it includes targeting a return to budget surplus. The alternative is straightforward. Government has to do what families and small businesses across my electorate in McPherson already do every day: set priorities, live within its means and stop spending money it doesn't have. Australians can't afford another term of government spending pushing in one direction while the Reserve Bank pushes in the other. Families should not continually be asked to pay the price for Canberra's failure to exercise restraint. So I say to those opposite: cut the waste, get spending under control, take pressure off inflation and interest rates and give Australian families the opportunity to get ahead.