Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Australian businesses make billions of dollars worth of investment decisions everyday. To do this they need certainty, to do this they need consistency and to do this they need reliability in the economy and in the hands that steer it. That's why Senator Dean Smith's questions today are so important for the Australian economy. Today in a question by Senator Smith we heard the challenge that the Assistant Treasurer's actions have caused all this. I don't think it was assessing his merits or his integrity. It was just the potential damage that inconsistency can cause to the economy.

I note that the Assistant Treasurer is the member for Whitlam. I note that in just three days some of those opposite will be celebrating 50 years since Mr Whitlam took office. Well, in '72 it was potentially time, and in '22 the minister's time is potentially up. We've had the three strikes. We've had problems in all the areas we spoke about earlier, and business needs better. The economy needs better. Australian households need better.

I noted that in the response by Minister Gallagher she said that the Assistant Treasurer was an outstanding person. There is no question of that. We are not questioning his personality. We are not testing his character. He may be the Keanu Reeves of this parliament for all I know. I haven't met him. He may pet dogs and work at a pound and look after cats. No one is questioning his personality, merely his competency and his ability to see things through.

I'll get back to the point: business needs confidence in the economy so that when the government shakes a hand, when a government nods a head, when a government says yes, they get a deal that sticks. When we go into a business case, when we've sat in a boardroom—and I have sat there trying to diversify a business to make it more resilient to look to the future—when we're looking at billions of dollars worth of investment we look at millions of dollars of consultants and millions of dollars of man-hours. We look at tens of people looking to make this investment. Now what have we got? We've got uncertainty. We have an Assistant Treasurer who can change his mind on regulation and can say stuff that you may rely on that is incorrect. We have interest rates going up. We have the cost of living going through the roof. The economy is not stable at the moment, and inconsistency in messaging from the government have hurt it.

We heard from Senator Bragg some of the areas where there's been a flip-flop or a change. We heard about cryptocurrency and getting involved in regulation around that. There was an article today about a couple losing $50,000 in superannuation for a lack of regulation in the cryptocurrency space. That lack of certainty is going to hurt them personally. It's going to hit budgets all across Australia when they do that. We heard about the super disclosure laws being wound back. People deserve to know. Every time they do this, they think a union does that and the Labor Party does that. People need consistency. They need to know that is not the case. We talked about bank penalties being wound back. What is that about? It's like an episode of Rake. Was the shadow minister scared the banks were going to close his bank accounts and he would have to go to 'Parliamentary Friends of Breakfast' to get a meal around here? We flipped back on the bank episode here. All these things are not good. They are not consistent and they do not give confidence to the economy.

That is before we even get to mums and dads—their consistency, their certainty. They went into an election hearing $275 worth of savings, and that has evaporated. They are doing their budgets, and we have had eight or nine interest rate rises since this government was elected. The cash rate is now more than eight times higher than when this government was elected. There is no consistency. There is no steady hand. We deserve better. The Australian people deserve better. The Assistant Treasurer just needs to get it right. If he doesn't go, he needs to get it right, because the people deserve that.

Question agreed to.