Sarah Henderson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Communications and Digital Safety) Share this | Hansard source

This is a budget full of broken promises—higher taxes, more debt, lower living standards and fewer homes for Australians. Because Labor can't manage money, we're facing a decade of deficits worth $150 billion, and every Australian will be forced to foot the bill. Australians will pay an extra $50 billion in taxes over the next four years. This includes an extra $15 billion in personal income taxes and billions more from new taxes on houses, small businesses, farms and shares as a result of capital gains tax and negative gearing broken promises.

This budget confirms Labor's housing tax will make the housing situation worse, reducing the supply of homes by 35,000 and increasing rents. This makes it harder for Australians to save for the future and harder for small businesses to grow and invest. These are taxes on aspiration and Australians who work hard to get ahead. Real wages are down three per cent, and Australians have experienced the steepest fall in living standards of any developed country. Unfortunately, there is more price pain on the way for Australians.

Even before the war, Australia's inflation was higher than any major advanced economy. Now inflation is set to reach five per cent this year. Families will be forced to pay more for everyday essentials like fuel and groceries, and there will be more upward pressure on interest rates. Disgracefully, Labor will bring two million migrants into Australia in its first two terms, including 90,000 more than targeted over the next two years. This will make housing less affordable and put more pressure on hospitals, schools and roads.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Treasurer, Mr Chalmers, have gone on a public servant hiring spree with nothing to show for it. When Labor was elected there were 172,000 bureaucrats; now there are 217,000. Under Labor, annual interest repayments have more than doubled and will reach more than $42 billion by the end of the decade.

Labor's budget of broken promises—sickening broken promises—shows $18 billion in new net zero spending, plus money to establish a massive new green bureaucracy—the Environmental Protection Authority, staffed by 700 bureaucrats. This is a job-killing, project-cancelling agency. Labor is giving a capital gains tax cut to foreign investors in renewable energy while raising capital gains tax on young Australians trying to get ahead. A massive $750 million cut for veterans includes a $340 million-a-year cut on allied health services. In the middle of a skills crisis this budget rips out $266 million from Australian apprentices at a time when there are 130,000 fewer apprentices and trainees then when Labor was elected. Labor is cutting Defence spending next year, at a time when Australia faces its most dangerous strategic circumstances since World War II.

On Thursday night Angus Taylor will deliver our budget-in-reply and outline the coalition's plan for a stronger economy and a better Australia. This will be a plan to restore Australia's standard of living and protect our way of life by backing Australians who have a go. The coalition will fight tooth and nail against Labor's new taxes and reckless spending—against Labor's reckless spending which is driving up interest rates, which is driving up inflation and which is making all Australians poorer. This is a budget which has betrayed every single Australian.