Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Labor's budget of broken promises sells out regional Australia and by doing so sells out the future of all Australians. In our lucky country, we should be able to promise younger Australians a wealthier, healthier and easier life than the one we had. Every generation of Australians has not only made that promise but delivered upon it. Labor's budget breaks promises, but, worse still, it breaches the intergenerational social contract of ever-rising prosperity that has bound generations of Australians together. Tonight, I commit that the Nationals and the Liberals will always fight to hand on a stronger and wealthier country than the one we have inherited. We will never give up on the potential of the Australian nation and its people.

Labor's own budget forecasts higher inflation, lower real wages and fewer homes, because of its broken promises on tax. Labor has given up on economic growth. Labor has given up on cheaper energy; Labor has given up on building the roads, the rail lines and the dams that could unlock our nation; Labor has given up on controlling our borders; Labor has given up on the cost of living; and, after four years of higher prices and lower wages, Labor has given up on Australia.

This week, in their budget, they flew the white flag. Look, I'm from Queensland. We know how to come back, and I will never give up. I will never give up on this country. I will never give up on fighting for Australians. I will never give up on our great nation and its promise to be the best country in the world. We can make life better, but to do so we must use our country again. We must develop our farming, our mining, our energy, our tourism assets and all of the industries of regional Australia. Australia's extraordinary economic success has been underpinned by the use of our natural resources. It is the natural wealth of regional Australia that will also provide the springboard to a better future for all Australians.

I have spoken to thousands of regional Australians in the last couple of months in southern New South Wales, during the Farrer by-election. I spoke with Sam, a cafe owner, who told me that rising costs are making it harder to keep his doors open. I spoke with Emily, a young mother, who says it's becoming almost impossible to raise a family with the soaring cost of living. I spoke with Simon, a farmer near Griffith, who worries whether he can plant a crop this season, given skyrocketing water, fuel and fertiliser costs. I spoke with Mary, a pensioner, who fears rising health premiums following Labor's cuts to the private health insurance rebate. I spoke with Vicki, who has been waiting two years for a knee replacement operation. I listened to those people in southern New South Wales. I'm not so sure if they listened to me, given the election results, but I was there to listen to their concerns and I will act on them. The Labor Party and Anthony Albanese didn't even show up. They did not show up to listen to them.

Anthony Albanese—and Labor—has not just broken promises to Sam, to Emily, to Simon, to Mary and to Vicki but has let them down. He has let them down because the budget this week does nothing to reduce the cost of living. It does nothing to make it easier to employ people in small business or farming and does nothing to tackle the waiting lists in our hospitals. Instead, this week's budget disappears into a mess of unworkable tax increases that confuse Australians, punish aspiration and fail even to deliver the promised benefits. Labor's own budget papers admit that its tax policies will result in fewer homes being built. How can reducing housing supply help Australians buy their first home? You can't tax your way to more houses.

Labor is not listening to the Australian people. Australians want life to be easier again, and that means we must reduce the cost of everyday items. It is now more expensive to buy Tim Tams here than it is in Canada. I checked that today. Tim Tams are on sales at Coles at the moment for $4.20 a pack, but at Walmart in Canada they are just $3 in Australian terms. It's becoming even more expensive to have a tea break under Labor.

Just like those Tim Tams, Australian factories now pay more for electricity than factories in Japan. We are the biggest supplier of energy to Japan. So why can't our factories enjoy cheaper power prices than the countries we export energy to? The answer is that Japan continues to build coal-fired and gas-fired power stations and reopen nuclear stations while Labor remains obsessed with net zero. A future Liberal and Nationals government will scrap Labor's net zero target. We will restore the idea that Australia's energy system should be run with one overriding principle, and that is to deliver the cheapest possible power prices for Australians. Our plan will be cheaper, better and fairer. Our plan will be cheaper because we will use all of our natural resources, and more energy supply means lower prices. Our plan will be better because lower power prices will revive manufacturing. It will unlock new opportunities, including in artificial intelligence and advanced industries. We should not ban any energy sources. We should use our coal, gas, hydro, nuclear and renewables—they all have a role to play. Australia needs the best fit of energy sources for all of our different needs. Our plan will be fairer because Australia will no longer cut emissions at a rate far beyond the rest of the world. Under Labor's targets, Australia is expected to reduce its emissions at roughly three times the rate of other comparable developed nations.

The Treasurer's speech on Tuesday was his first budget speech not to promise to lower energy prices. He's done so every other year. Every other year he's turned up and said, 'Energy prices will be lower this year,' and then, of course, energy prices have gone up. But, this year, there was no mention of energy prices at all. Is the government actually listening to people? The cost of energy is probably, for all of us, the most common thing that is raised with us from families and businesses—from everybody! Yet now the government has taken a monastic vow of silence on energy prices itself. The only explanation is that they are embarrassed because electricity and gas prices have risen under them by almost 40 per cent.

In his speech, the Treasurer mentioned net zero just once, and that was really an afterthought. He didn't mention climate change at all. Net zero is collapsing around the world while Australians continue to pay the price for it here. This week, Labor committed another $18 billion of net zero spending. At the same time, Labor continues to spend recklessly, with another $9 billion in new policy spending next year alone. Labor is ignoring the Reserve Bank's warning that excessive government spending is driving up interest rates. When interest rates rise, regional Australia suffers most. New investments in mines and farms become unviable. Under Labor's high-interest-rate settings, investment growth slows dramatically. Mining investment growth is forecast to slump to zero in 2027-28. That's not a misprint. Labor's budget itself says that mining investment growth will fall to zero. The Labor Party promised that net zero would unleash a critical minerals boom, but the only thing that's gone to zero is mining investment itself.

Nor is this shortfall in private investment being offset by nation-building infrastructure. This budget slashes $9 billion worth of infrastructure investment in regional Australia. Labor's pulled up stumps on the Inland Rail project while it remains half complete. Inland Rail is exactly the kind of nation-building investment we need. It would free up our roads, reduce freight costs, help our farmers and lower prices—yet the government is ripping $6 billion from this project in a false economy that will cost Australia dearly in the long term. Then Labor will go and use these savings to bail out a failing Labor government in Victoria by pumping another $3.8 billion into suburban rail projects. The Liberals and Nationals will fight this shortsighted decision. I thank the councils, businesses and regional communities that are standing up for their future.

The government has announced $5½ billion in new infrastructure spending, yet less than $50 million of that, not even one per cent, will go to regional Australia. Labor has spent a lot of time talking about intergenerational equity. That hasn't been delivered. But I'll tell you what has been delivered; what has been delivered is geographical inequity. The fair go for regional Australia has been obliterated in this budget.

The Liberals and Nationals will instead invest in infrastructure that lowers the cost of doing business and strengthens our national economy. This government has already squandered one mining boom and now risks wasting another through reckless spending and economic complacency. We must give regional Australians a fair go by saving for the future, when high coal and gas and iron ore prices deliver rivers of gold to Canberra.

We will place 80c of every mining windfall dollar into a future generations fund, and one quarter of that fund will be dedicated to a regional Australian future generations fund, investing directly back into the regions that generated that wealth in the first place. The wealth generated by mining booms comes from regional Australia, and it's only fair that some of that wealth is reinvested there. Those investments will support productivity, they will diversify regional economies and they'll help attract more Australians to live and work in regional communities, taking pressure off our capital cities. Australia has one of the most concentrated populations in the world. We need to spread out more, so people can own a home at an affordable price.

Labor has scrapped funding for the National Water Grid. When the Liberals and Nationals left government we left them a clear pipeline of new dams and water infrastructure, but Labor has abandoned the expansion of Australian farming. Australia has enormous potential to build dams, to produce more food, and we will invest in dams again and ensure that that water is used to expand farming opportunities and farming communities.

Labor continues to demonstrate that they sell out regional Australia. It has signed up to the worst trade deal in our history and is spending another $40 million on that in this budget. Labor signed a sweetheart deal to provide capital gains tax concessions to foreign investors in the large-scale solar and wind projects that are destroying our pristine bushland. Labor continues to demonise law-abiding firearm owners. Labor has provided no tangible support for regional tourism or farmers, who are struggling with high fuel and operating costs.

Australia needs more families and more children, which means giving parents more freedom in how they raise their own kids. The finance minister's insensitive comments on Mother's Day—suggesting that a mother could simply be replaced by a childcare worker—were not only insulting but also wrong. Children benefit enormously from time with their mothers and fathers. Parents would love to spend more time with their children, but Labor's inflation and taxes are making that increasingly difficult.

Labor's answer is always more subsidies, more red tape, more government interference. But this has only driven childcare fees higher—assuming the family can find child care in the first place. We will put parents back in charge by giving families more options, whether through child care or by supporting parents who choose to care for their own children at home.

To deliver more homes across the region, the Liberals and Nationals will establish a $5 billion housing infrastructure fund, with 30 per cent of that targeted to enable infrastructure to unlock new housing in regional areas. We will never solve the housing crisis by endlessly cramming more people into Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. Not every young Australian will move to the regions, but every person who does will relieve pressure on housing markets in our major cities. And Australia must build new cities to relieve pressure on our existing cities.

This will take time, of course. And in the short term, migration must once again reflect the needs of Australians. Labor has missed its migration targets again in this budget, and that means even more people competing for scarce housing in this country. We will cap migration in line with housing builds. We cannot bring more and more people into this country while some Australians must live in tents. We do not need mass migration to deliver high economic growth.

We will oppose Labor's tax increases and repeal them when we get into government. We need tax to go down and cost of living to go down, and we need living standards to go up. While Labor has no plan to lift the economic growth and the economic prospects of Australians, we do. Australia already has everything it needs to succeed. We're the only nation on Earth that occupies an entire continent; we have a whole continent to ourselves. We have the land, we have the resources, we have the water, we have the people and we have the ingenuity to shape our own destiny, with more jobs, more wealth and more opportunity.

Banjo Paterson once wrote of this country that we have the great 'plains extended', and we need to aim for that horizon again. We need to use our country. We need more oil. We need more gas. We need more coal-fired power stations. We need more dams. We need more roads. We need more rail lines. We need more factories. We need more homes. We need more babies. We need more Australia. We just need a hyper-Australia, as I like to call it. There is nothing that is wrong in this country that we cannot fix by just using more of what we have in Australia.

Labor may have given up on Australia this week, Labor may have flown the white flag, but we never will. A Liberal and Nationals government will restore trust, restore confidence, restore hope and restore the belief that Australia's best days are ahead.