I rise to support the motion moved by the member for Bowman. There's a pretty simple test Australians apply to economic policy. After working hard all week, they have to decide whether to keep more of what they earn. Can they afford to pay the power bill? Can they afford to pay the mortgage? Can they realistically pay for their kids schooling and for their groceries? Will they have any money left over to save? Under Labor the answer has been no, increasingly, to that question. Their economic model is painfully familiar. Take more, spend more, regulate more and then hand back a fraction through a subsidy.

The coalition is offering something fundamentally different. The coalition's plan is to offer a tax cut for life. That is an income tax you get every single year, and it gets bigger every single year. It is a lifetime tax cut that gets bigger every year for the rest of your life. That is what the coalition is offering because ultimately, ideologically, we believe that money is better off in the pockets of hardworking Australians and their businesses. No-one knows better how to spend that money than you and the businesses Australians own.

Unfortunately, this Labor government believe they are better able to spend that money than hardworking Australians. That is why CGT is going up. That is why negative gearing is now taxed. That is why they went after an increased tax on super funds. That is why tax after tax of this government continues to go up through bracket creep and others.

Secondly, the coalition has a plan to create a sovereign wealth fund. We are sick of watching windfall gains that we get under mining, gas and resources being sucked up by this government and then spent on general revenue, be it through the growing Public Service or be it through out-of-control rorting in the NDIS or myriad other government programs. We believe 80 per cent of every extra dollar in windfall gains from gas, coal and minerals should be quarantined in a sovereign wealth fund put away for future generations. These minerals and gases are in the ground once. They're dug up once. And we believe that future Australians should have this money put away for them so they can benefit and their kids and grandchildren can benefit. That is the kind of discipline the coalition will bring to this budget. A resources boom should not just fund paying off government debt or paying off out-of-control government spending. It should help build a stronger Australia for generations.

Nowhere is there more long-term thinking needed than housing. We can't keep adding immigration to a level housing cannot keep up with. When population growth outruns housing, our roads, schools, hospitals and car parks bear the price. Every Australian in a capital city feels this right now in their neighbourhood. They pay it in higher rents. They pay it sitting in traffic. They pay it as they turn up to their children's schools and see demountables flooding the place. And they pay it when they can't find a park on weekends, because our infrastructure cannot keep up with the pace of immigration. You see it in waiting rooms. Recently in Cook, in the Sutherland shire, it was repeated. One in 10 people can wait up to 24 hours for a bed. This is why the coalition will link migration to housing capacity, a perfectly sensible, logical solution. We will establish a $5 billion housing infrastructure fund to unlock 400,000 homes by getting roads, sewerage, water and power there in the first place.

Last week in the Sutherland shire, more than 250 people came together to protest against high immigration levels and overdevelopment. I congratulate every one of them. They sent a message to Anthony Albanese and Chris Minns: enough! While the residents were protesting the Premier, the Premier was giving a talk, at $150 a head, about how he is going to jam the Sutherland shire with increasing development and no new infrastructure. The Sutherland shire has had enough. They're standing up, and I'm standing up with you. Congratulations.

I was so glad to see that, at last, the opposition had put out an economic plan. We've been waiting a long time to see any sort of plan from them. It's been more than a year since they voted against the tax cuts before the election. They voted against the tax cuts this year as well. Those decisions showed us a little bit about what they stood for and what they'd do if they were in power, but we've been waiting to hear from them about their vision for the future of this country.

We could go back further, to the last time that they were in opposition. I'm old enough to remember the Our plan: real solutions for all Australians pamphlet that the Abbott opposition put out. All it was was a little blue and gold flyer which they wrote 'our plan' across the top of. They famously couldn't say anything about it, if anyone remembers that clip of a certain Greenway candidate.

It was heartening to hear that they'd put something out that was a proper plan and was presumably a little bit more than just a blue and gold flyer. Imagine my surprise when we finally got a look at it. What is it? Just another blue and gold flyer with nothing of substance contained within. Australians have seen this movie before. They know where a pamphlet with a series of thought bubbles and motherhood statements without follow-through and without a plan for delivery in government leads. They know that these statements aren't ones that reflect the track records of their authors.

Those opposites say they're all for lower taxes, but they won't vote for them. When push comes to shove, they would rather let working Australians pick up the tab for business lunches than give them a tax cut. On 1 July, working Australians got yet another tax cut under our government, with the combined effect of our tax cuts saving the average worker up to $2,800. Those opposite wish it weren't so, but it is. As much as they pay lip service to lower taxes, they refuse to put their money where their mouth is. When given the chance to support another tax cut this year, they voted against it, this time with One Nation on their side. If those opposite had their way, Australian workers would be paying more tax to satisfy the three right-wing parties' appetite for long lunches, government-owned nuclear plants and the reinstatement of property tax settings that locked a generation of Australians out of the housing market.

The coalition say that they're all for lower power prices but still baulk at the rollout of cheap, reliable renewables that shield Australians from global price shocks. Their ever-changing energy policy has been a mix of picking winners through government-owned nuclear power stations, letting the market decide and deciding that letting the market decide didn't produce the outcomes that suit their ideology, so Soviet-style long-term underwriting of ageing generation assets was the go. When none of that works, they change the rules to hide the power price increases when the facts clash with their ideology, as the Leader of the Opposition did when he was energy minister. Under the coalition's energy plan, not only would Australians face higher energy bills; their taxes and insurance premiums would be higher too.

Fortunately for those of us who still believe in markets, the clean energy transition is well underway and delivering real savings for the 4.3 million homes and small businesses benefiting from cheap solar, including the 4,447 households in my southern Sydney electorate of Hughes who have taken up our Cheaper Home Batteries Program.

They say that they're all for providing more housing, but what more housing? They hardly built any houses during the near decade that they had in office. We just had the member for Grey in here saying, 'Oh, ministers don't build houses.' Under this government, the minister has been building houses. Our housing policies have been producing way more houses than they ever produced. Why are we surprised, when they didn't even have a minister devoted to doing it? Whose side are they on in the housing debate? Certainly not the 75,000 young Australians who will benefit from our tax reforms to property.

If the coalition are as serious about reversing these changes as they were about voting against them, they would rather these 75,000 Australians be priced out by government subsidised investors to offset their tax. They would rather that 75,000 auctions go to the bidder with the biggest portfolio and the biggest tax breaks on their side, funded by Australian workers instead of the mums, dads and young Australians dreaming of taking an ownership stake in their community. The young Australians in my electorate still dream of setting down roots in the places they know and love, close to family and giving back to their community.

On this side, we live in the real world and we're doing whatever we can to make the real world easier for working Australians to live and thrive in. Those opposite know they'll never have to implement their plan, because they can't secure a majority without One Nation, so they can write whatever fantasy they want on that pamphlet without any regard for consequence.

In my electorate, the No. 1 issue of concern for constituents is cost of living, so let's start with the basics. If we're serious about fixing the economy and putting downward pressure on the cost of living, we must get the cost of electricity down. Here is the very first and clear difference between the Labor Party and the coalition. For Labor, energy policy is about ideology, emission targets, transmission lines, secret carbon taxes and billions of dollars in subsidies. The coalition knows that futureproofing electricity is very simple. The question is does it deliver affordable and reliable power to Australian households and businesses?

For the people I represent in Barker, electricity isn't an ideological exercise. Electricity is about the price of things. It's about producing the food Australians eat; pumping water and running irrigation; crushing grapes and making wine; milling the timber we use to build our homes; running a shop, a pub or a bakery; and keeping the lights on at a local service station. Under Labor, electricity bills have increased by about 40 per cent. That matters in Barker. When electricity and gas prices rise, farmers pay more, manufacturers pay more, small businesses pay more, food processors pay more and ultimately South Australian families pay more.

Labor talks about making Australia a renewable energy superpower. We want to make Australia a production superpower. We know that means more cheaper energy, and it's not hard to do. We live in an energy rich country. Australia is blessed with vast reserves of coal and uranium. Yet Australia and Australians are being denied the full benefit of these resources. The coalition believes that we should be using Australian energy for Australian homes, farms and businesses instead of exporting it to our competitors. A sensible energy policy must back every technology capable of delivering affordable, reliable power. That means including coal, gas, renewables and indeed nuclear energy as part of a balanced energy mix.

We will get more Australian gas into the market. We'll keep reliable generation operating for as long as we need it. We'll lift the ban on nuclear energy. We'll scrap Labor's secretive carbon taxes, including the Safeguard Mechanism. We'll back coal. We'll back gas. We'll back hydro. We'll back nuclear. We'll back batteries and renewables in the right places. The judge for energy policy is affordability and reliability. Cheaper power means cheaper food, cheaper power means stronger small businesses and cheaper power means Barker can keep doing what it does best, which is producing the food and fibre Australians need. That is one of the ways that we will fix the Australian economy.

In Barker, we produce food for the world. We're an agricultural powerhouse. Across food and fibre, we're world-class producers and an integral part of the South Australian and Australian economies. Our farmers are already among the most efficient and innovative producers anywhere in the world. They need and are owed a government that is committed to protecting their right to farm. Here, again, is the fundamental difference between the party I represent and the once-great Labor Party. Labor's net zero policies are now creating incentives for productive Australian land to be bought for carbon projects. We have already seen where that can lead.

In Tasmania, Rushy Lagoon has been sold to a UK investment firm for $142 million. A taxpayer backed Commonwealth body, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, provided $69 million towards that purchase. About 9,000 hectares are expected to be converted into a plantation. Think about what that means. It means that Australian farmers are now competing with foreign investments that are backed by their own government. This is madness. Labor believes government should spend more. Labor believes government should regulate more. Labor believes we should tax more and subsidise more. The Liberal Party, on the other hand, has a plan to fix the economy and protect our way of life, where we have lower taxes, lower immigration, lower regulation and lower energy costs.

Can I say that, if the member for Barker had his way, his constituents would be going pretty hungry, and they'd be going pretty hungry because the butcher and the baker simply cannot wait the 20 years that his nuclear dream has to come to fruition. The butcher and the baker cannot afford the billions and billions and billions of dollars that we know would have to be invested to make his nuclear dream a reality. What is incredibly clear is that the member for Barker has certainly not learnt his lesson from what the Australian people had to say about it at the 2025 election.

Can I say that this is not an economic plan. What this is is a list of the coalition's unfulfilled regrets, and we should go through them. The coalition say that they want to deliver lower taxes. Can I say: if the coalition wanted to deliver lower taxes, why did they vote against them? Not once, not twice, not three times, not four times but five times the opposition voted against lower taxes. If the coalition wanted to deliver lower power prices, why are they so dead set against renewables, which we know are cheaper and cleaner, and instead pursuing an energy future of nuclear, something that we know is devastatingly expensive and takes a very long time to deliver? If the coalition wanted to provide more housing, why did they vote against housing policies that would see 75,000 people—young people—getting into their very first home? And, if the coalition wanted to put Australians first, why will they not tell us what they want to cut? If the experience in Queensland has anything to say on that then we know what the playbook is. The playbook is cutting from domestic violence support and from health. In Queensland, that is what we have seen.

You can't look at what the opposition says. You can't trust what the opposition has to say, because, again and again and again, we see them do the opposite. So, rather than looking at an economic plan that is based on an absolute fantasy, what we should do is look at what they've done, how they've voted and the policies that they have put to the Australian people, because they are policies of higher taxes, they are policies of lower wages and they are policies of more cuts to the support that Australians need and rely on every single day.

I believe that an economic plan is not a list of things that you haven't done. I believe that an economic plan sets out who we want to be as a country and sets out how the economy can work for Australians every day. We know that, right now, Australians are doing it tough. We know that people are struggling to pay the bills and we know that, when they get to the checkout or to the bowser, it's tough. On top of that, we know that there's an incredibly challenging global outlook right now.

That's why this Labor government is reducing taxes for everyday Australians. It's why we're implementing tax relief and tax reform to make our economy work in the best interests of more Australians. It's why we're investing in health care, where urgent care clinics, cheaper medicines and making more bulk-billing GPs come back to our communities are our priority. It's why we're investing in housing, to make sure young people can re-enliven that dream of having their very own home for the very first time. It's why we've taken an inherited trillion dollars of debt with bigger deficits and stagnant wage growth from the coalition and turned them around.

The budget is nearly $45 billion stronger than the mid-year update. And this is a government that isn't just saying things. It's a government that's making the lives of everyday Australians better every day.

Thank you to the member for Bowman for bringing this important motion regarding economic plans before this House. Reflecting on some previous contributions, for everyone playing along at home, I would encourage you to do some googling: see how many of the frontbench in this Labor Albanese government has a commerce degree, a business degree. How many of them have worked in the private sector? The answers will shock you. No wonder the economy is in the toilet.

When Labor came to government they were handed the biggest commodity windfall in our history. And what did they do? They blew it. After 4½ years of the Albanese Labor government, it's time those opposite started taking some responsibility for their fiscal failure. Inflation is too high. The interest rate has a four in front of it—and climbing. Productivity is weakening. And families are under enormous pressure. If the markets are any indicator, Labor is set to hand Australian families a cruel early Christmas present: another interest rate rise.

Last year the Treasurer, in all his wisdom, told us we had turned the corner on inflation. However, after 15 rate rises under this government, Australian families are bracing for another one this month. The jobs market is weakening—except in the public sector; 691,000 Australians are out of work, and that number is only rising. This government has no-one to blame for their mess but themselves. While Labor's debt has surpassed $1 trillion, Treasury bond yields are on the rise, meaning that more money than ever is being spent on servicing the debt. That means less money for infrastructure and services.

Those opposite often say that that debt belongs to the coalition. Yet, had Labor had their way during COVID, they would have spent an additional $81 billion. Under the Albanese Labor government, the Public Service has grown by 28 people every single day—a 23 per cent rise, the largest recruitment drive this century. And 92 out of 103 federal agencies have grown since Labor came to office.

A government member interjecting

But one agency that has shrunk is the Productivity Commission—the very agency responsible for fixing the biggest problem in our economy.

Don't get me wrong. Our public servants do important work, from supporting our veterans and protecting our borders to helping older Australians access the services they deserve. There is vital work undertaken. The issue is the rhetoric from this government. Labor says the recruitment drive is about replacing consultants, as the interjection just before said. But after a 23 per cent rise, there is not much to show for it. I was one of those consultants, by the way.

Show us where services have got better. You would think Veterans' Affairs would be the first in line to see improvement. Yet, after 4½ years of the Albanese Labor government, veterans tell me the system has never been worse. While Canberra has been hiring, Australian businesses have been fighting to stay open. Labor's net zero obsession has inflated power bills by 40 per cent. Energy-intensive industries are falling like dominoes. The steelworks in Whyalla, in my own electorate—550 jobs gone today—and the smelter in Port Pirie; they have both needed taxpayers to step in.

There are only two ways forward. We can either keep patching the bleed with taxpayer bailouts, or we can fix the root cause by delivering cheap, reliable power so our industries can become competitive again. We cannot have A Future Made in Australia without a competitive playing field. The coalition will scrap net zero and back any technology that delivers affordable and reliable energy for households, small businesses and industries that keep our regions running.

We will deliver less migration and more homes by linking migration to the number of homes we actually build. We will axe Labor's toxic taxes and deliver a tax back guarantee. And we will establish a future generations fund to pay down Labor's debt and invest in the roads, ports, energy and water infrastructure this country so desperately needs. The coalition's plan is to put Australians first.