Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

The budget confirmed for Australians that Labor's economic vandalism is killing our once prosperous country. Labor's betrayal, broken promises and backflips have consequences, and fellow South Australians are paying the price. We have the highest proportion of older people on mainland Australia. If you are over 65, your private health insurance rebate is about to be cut. Continuing the reckless pursuit of net zero, Labor is taking from ever hardworking Australians to spend $18 billion on its net zero fantasy. South Australia has the highest renewables mix in its energy grid, yet we pay some of the highest electricity prices in the country—up more than 32 per cent under this government.

Groceries are up 17 per cent, health care is up 17 per cent, education is up 21 per cent, insurance is up 42 per cent, and rents are up 23 per cent, too. That will only get worse. For more than 200,000 rental households in South Australia, getting ahead is about to get harder. Just in, new quarterly data shows South Australians are experiencing the equal worst wage growth of any state or territory at just 0.4 of a per cent.

That is Labor's economic wreck. Small businesses in South Australia are experiencing record insolvencies. The dream, the aspiration, has been killed off for them. Australians will pay an extra $50 billion in taxes over the next four years. That includes an extra $15 billion in personal income taxes and billions more from new taxes on housing, businesses, farms and shares. Labor is making it worse. This is Labor's doing, no-one else's. They have had it for four years; they have stuffed it.