Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) | Hansard source

Every taxpayer in the country, because the government will, of course, fund a defence to try to say it is constitutional.

This is just insanity, but this is a prime example of what this place is for. This place is to review legislation. This place is making sure that there aren't unintended consequences, that legislation is reviewed properly by stakeholders who understand the nuance of these particular industries, that understand the legality around these issues, that can give advice to senators so they can amend legislation as required, or even, as we saw this week when the government withdrew its own legislation, pull it off the Notice Paper. It was such a bad bill that they managed to unify everybody in Australia against it. Seriously, it is a big ask to unify the entire country on how bad a bill is. Thankfully, we can all now have a conversation with each other out in the hallways of Parliament House without worrying about some bureaucrat coming and hauling us off to jail because they don't agree with our opinion.

Thankfully, they withdrew that. But they won't withdraw this. They're not withdrawing so much of the other stuff. They're not putting it to committees. They're not putting it through a review process. They're not allowing time for the Senate to actually debate this, review this, inquire into it, hear from stakeholders and make sure that any unintended consequences can be revoked. It is just everywhere. It is mind-blowing.

I think Australians are really starting to see what this government is like, how incapable they are, how incompetent they are and how they clearly live in a different world to the rest of us when they stand in here answering questions. If you listen to them, Australians, what are you talking about? You've never had it so good. They're doing such a great job. They've got these fabulous talking points. My personal favourite is every time they chirp out 'cheaper child care'. When you actually see every study, childcare costs have gone up, because yet again they've stuffed up the way they've done the payment, so everyone has just put their fees up. So parents are actually more out of pocket than they were beforehand.

They clearly live in a different world to the rest of us. Australians are doing it tough. Australians are struggling to put groceries on the table. Australians are coming into this Christmas season not filled with joy or hope. They're filled with dread. They don't know how they're going to afford to put their presents, which in my house would be wrapped in beautiful red and white paper with a lovely red bow and beautiful red ribbon, under the tree. They don't know how they're going to buy those gifts. They don't know how they're going to have a Christmas holiday. They don't know what they're going to do. They are finding it harder and harder to put groceries on the table and harder and harder to pay their power bills.

Do you remember the $275 that was supposed to come off your power bill? Everyone's power bill has gone up about $1,000 instead. When you tell people 97 times that you're going to reduce their bills, the very least they expect is that they're not going to quadruple, but that's what they've seen under this government and its complete incompetence. Yet they will stand in here and say: 'Everything is great. We've done a great job with cost-of-living measures.' Their cost-of-living measures have done nothing but make the situation worse. This is another example of a bill that is going to completely destroy small and family businesses and everyone else who relies on them.