Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade) Share this | Hansard source

The coalition wants Australia to be a place of opportunity, aspiration, freedom and safety—an Australia where life is affordable, where young Australians can buy a home, where you can raise a family because you have confidence in the future and where getting a fair go is the reality of the Australian experience, not a dream. To do this, the coalition will fight against Labor's bad taxes—Labor's taxes on your house, taxes on superannuation and taxes on your children's future. The coalition will require the government to live within its means. If Australian households have to live within their means, why shouldn't the government have to live within its means? The coalition will remove Labor's carbon taxes, which are pushing up the cost of food, pushing up the cost of cars and pushing up the cost of housing.

Under Labor, living standards in Australia have gone backwards. Under Labor, we have seen the largest collapse in living standards in the developed world. Under Labor, inflation remains out of control, driving up interest rates and hurting Australian families with mortgages. Under Labor, government spending is at the highest level in 40 years and Australia is on track to tip into $1 trillion worth of debt—a debt that is a tax on the next generation of Australians, a tax that the next generation of Australians will be forced to pay.

And Labor says that it's tackling inflation. Well, Labor is failing Australian households when it comes to inflation. Just today, we had released the national accounts for our country. The national accounts are like a health check on the economy, and the national accounts say that the Australian economy is sick. On a per capita basis, the Australian economy remains poorer than in March 2022, when Labor was elected. The national accounts demonstrate that this results in Australia experiencing the largest collapse in living standards in the developed world. They reveal that, according to the latest figures from the OECD, Australia has expressed the largest collapse in living standards amongst all developed countries and that Australia has made no progress in improving living standards against the OECD average, remaining down 10 percentage points. And Labor likes to talk a lot about wages. Well, let's hear the truth about wages. Real wages are more than two per cent lower today than when Labor took office and are falling as I speak. The RBA expects real wages to continue to fall all year, all through to December 2026.

What is the consequence of Labor's failing economic management? It means that, in times of crisis, the economy is weaker, the economy can't respond and Australian families and businesses pay a high price. That is exactly what we're experiencing and living through just this week. Labor's poor economic management has left Australia exposed to international crises. Even before the Iran conflict, inflation and interest rates were rising and forecast to rise further. Whatever impact the Iran crisis may have on the Australian economy and on Australian households, it will be compounded. That economic cost, that economic catastrophe, will be compounded because Labor has failed over the last four years to get the economy right.

And Labor has been warned. The RBA has regularly warned that Australia may continue to suffer from high inflation and high interest rates if it's not suitably prepared for the possibility of growing geopolitical risks and international crises like the one we have seen.

The health of the Australian economy is sick. Australian households are now being forced to pay a very high price for that, and the next generation of Australians will be forced to live with higher taxes as a result of increasing national debt.

Question agreed to.