Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's time to cut out the cartel tax. What is the cartel tax? The cartel tax is the uplift we all pay when Labor governments entrench favour to union bosses. In return, unions repay graft so Labor can stay in government and keep the cartel going. This cartel hides in plain site between Labor governments, industry super and the unions, and the premiums are all paid for by us. Don't think workers get any benefit. It's largely about those at the top getting to the front of the trough. For example, the CFMEU's own reports show that, from 2019 to 2024, their officials got a 26 per cent salary increase while construction workers' real wages went backwards by nearly five per cent.

The cartel tax is trickle-up economics. Unions campaign to get state and federal Labor governments elected. Federal Labor governments compel workers to pay more of their wage into a super fund that a union controls. These funds shower your super, as marketing expenses, back onto unions. State Labor governments commission projects using industry super funds to finance them and compel union workers to be employed on them at inflated prices. Taxpayers and their super funds get left with the bill, and the public and future generations get left with the debt. The cartel tax flows through the economy, increasing prices for everyone, but the few who collect it are quite happy to finance the campaigns of Labor governments to get re-elected to keep the cartel going. Based on the CFMEU's impact in Queensland, it could push up the costs of construction by 30 per cent. On the cost of new projects, on the cost of new houses for first home buyers—it doesn't matter where it occurs; the cartel tax hits. The cartel tax is corruption. To stop the cartel tax, we must remove the cartel. The cartel is led by this Prime Minister, and he must go.

The authority of the prime ministership is more than being the head of government. It is a secular pulpit to rally our nation to a higher calling. I don't know where this prime minister or this government is taking our nation, but it has never felt so weakened spiritually, economically or morally. The insiders who sit on the government benches seem deaf and blind to people's concerns. Australians are rightly anxious. The world that surrounds us is becoming less certain. Those in charge seem disinterested in steering Australia on a clear course. There has never been a time when our national yearning for leadership has been so misaligned with the offering of our institutions.

Australia's Prime Minister should never hesitate to say that they love our country or its people; that we can look to our past with open eyes, be proud of our Indigenous heritage and our European settlement, acknowledge blemishes of the past as part of a continuing journey of improvement, and be proud of our achievements; or that our modern nation was founded in a cultural faith worth fighting for if we're to have a cohesive future. Our prime minister should thread a national story that new Australians want to integrate into and that celebrates us as a people. Our story must believe that individuality depends on a unifying culture based on a commitment to dignity and respect.

The Prime Minister should start by believing in us, not by bullying us. When Australians exercise their voice, he should listen, not sneer at them with his how-dare-you quiver in his lip. He should be respecting that every generation has wanted sustainable migration to conserve a decent standard of living for citizens today and for generations to come. It is not too much for Australians to want our government to be in control but not our master. As our security environment deteriorates, as our energy base declines, as our social cohesion fades and as households fall further behind, now is a time that compels leadership, and our prime minister should be calling us to a common future. Now is a time that Australia needs leaders who rally our nation to cock our heads higher, look to the horizon and call us as one people to a common destiny.

It has become clear to me that neither our prime minister nor his government will provide this leadership. He is more comfortable getting Australians to turn on each other than to each other. That is why the defeat of this government is no longer a political imperative; it is a moral one. It can be done. It must be done. It will be done.