Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) | Hansard source

That's the real story of this appalling budget. The Prime Minister has claimed his budget is a response to a rise in populism in Australia. At the economic summit hosted by Sky News and theAustralian this month, he said:

… if people think the economy isn't working for them and they're working their guts out and they're not getting opportunity, I tell you what, they will turn to more simplistic grievance based politics … Because it is real, the frustration that people have out there.

One Nation is not simplistic grievance politics. We have continually put forward policies that the Australian people relate to—policies that will improve the lives of Australians, take them out of poverty and give prosperity back to the people.

The Prime Minister obviously can't read the room. He doesn't know what's happening out there. He's never been in the real world, and neither have a lot of the ministers. When have they ever run a business, had a real job in the real world or understood what it's like? All they've done is get their money from the taxpayer. They've never really had to do it tough. Labor is blind to what Australians are really frustrated about, because Labor does not listen and Labor does not care. Australians have had enough of being lied to. Unfortunately for the government, it's in Labor's DNA.

Australians are constantly told renewables are cheaper. Yesterday in South Australia, with temperatures plummeting and no wind blowing—listen to this—it would have cost $5 to just boil a kettle. Because there was no wind, on a price balance here, they had to cap the cost of electricity, and, at the cap, it would have cost $5 to boil your kettle. That's the future, Australia. That's what we're heading for under these renewables, which this hopeless government keeps pushing on you, all supported by the Greens, this mob over here, this bunch of hypocrites. It is supported by them as well. Australians are constantly told renewables are cheaper, but they're not without the taxpayer government handouts. That's what actually gives you some relief, but don't expect it all the time. They can't; they're running out of money. They haven't got the money anymore to keep giving you these handouts and buying your vote. It puts you in the safe place, but you're not really safe. Anyway, renewables are obviously not cheaper.

It is not only about boiling the kettle. I was visiting a cotton farm near Goondiwindi, and do you know what they said? 'Oh, we get constantly asked to turn off the power. If we turn off the power so that no-one else goes into blackout—households—so they can deliver power, we get paid $150,000.' So this is what's happening. They're actually paying the subsidies for people to stop using the power so the renewables work. Otherwise, they'd all go down in a heap. So you can imagine what's going to happen in this country. We've seen this before. We've had blackouts in the country. Prepare for it. Buy more blankets, will you, please? Out there, you're going to need them and the coats and everything. You're going to need it, especially in wintertime now.

Household electricity costs have risen more than 200 per cent since large-scale renewables were first mandated. Around 337,000 Australian households can no longer afford their energy bills. Let me repeat that: around 337,000 Australian households can no longer afford their energy bills, let alone the businesses. They're shutting up shop. Let me remind you: 50,000 small businesses insolvent. Why? Because they can't afford their power bills. Industries and manufacturing are shutting down. Why? Because of the power bills. They're going overseas.

On top of that—oh, who's that aluminium smelter? Tomago—that's right—in New South Wales. Guess what: they gave them $1 billion to pay for their power, but the Australian people—forget about that. Forget about every other small business. They're terrified of losing Tomago from New South Wales, so they say, 'Let's give them a billion dollars in funding.' Oh, this is great! This is good economics of running this country! I just absolutely love it!

Then you've got Labor's obsession with net zero, which is evidently a major cause of Australia's cost-of-living crisis. But there's nothing in this budget which shows Labor cares about this impact. Australians are waking up to the scam. It is a scam. They don't believe this lie anymore. All they want is affordable and reliable electricity like we had before the major parties started spending uncounted billions of taxpayer dollars covering regional Australia in renewables. All they want is a fair go and a chance to get ahead, to own a home and to invest in their future prosperity just like their parents and grandparents could. Many Australians no longer believe they have this sort of future. This budget confirms Labor has every intention of taking this future away from them.

This budget intentionally kills aspiration. It seeks only to entrench mediocrity. It's classic Marxism. It doesn't make everyone equally rich; it makes everyone equally poor, except of course the ruling class. Having benefited immensely from negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts, Labor ministers are now pulling up the ladder behind them. They're alright. As we've heard, the Prime Minister's got his housing investments. I think it's a conflict of interest. I really do. He knew what was coming. He knew the laws were going to be changed. So he sold his investment properties and secured himself his house at $4.3 million. That's alright. And now they've brought in the negative gearing to stop other Australians with aspiration from owning their own homes. That's wonderful. That's fantastic, Prime Minister.

As I said, my Fire the Liar campaign is spot on. Australians aren't stupid, and slowly they're waking up. It's taken them some time. I wish they'd wake up a lot faster over this scam, the renewables, because they're really paying for it. But they know what's going on. They're starting to realise. They see the direct connection between government policy and their declining living standards. It's not grievance which is driving support away from the major parties and it's not social media algorithms, no matter how much the Marxist Greens wish that were the case. They want that to be the case, but it's not. It's the simple recognition by everyday Australians that they've been lied to all these years. This is changing Australia's political landscape. The political establishment is still using the map for the old landscape, and it's getting lost in the wilderness. One Nation makes no apology for successfully navigating this new landscape. We make no apology for listening to Australians and telling them the truth.

Businesses are collapsing at record rates. Around 50,000 businesses have become insolvent since Labor took office. Productivity is at its lowest in almost 60 years, especially in the bloated Public Service. Guess how much the Public Service has gone up under this government? It's gone up by 50,000. It's gone up from approximately 176,000 to 216,000 during this government. Who's paying for that? The taxpayers. My God, why do you need that many public servants? Oh, that's right—you've put in more regulations and restrictions over the people to control them. So you need all these people to now control the people more. Wonderful move, Labor! It's an absolutely fantastic move. You're really helping the Australian people out there.

Business confidence and domestic investment have fallen to lows not seen since Paul Keating's recession of the 1990s. Our inflation is the highest in the developed world, thanks mostly to out-of-control government spending. Australian families have endured 15 interest rate hikes, pushing more than a million households into mortgage stress. GDP per capita has fallen in 10 of the last 15 quarters. Budget deficits will balloon by another $100 billion over the forward estimates. Interest bearing debt will climb another $300 billion to about $1.3 trillion. So much for intergenerational equity. This budget only creates intergenerational poverty.

The bill we're debating has only been firmly rejected by the majority of Australians. The recent carve-out of concessions is an acknowledgement the policy itself is fundamentally flawed. It should be completely scrapped. Capital gains tax discounts and negative gearing provide the housing so desperately needed by millions of Australians after state governments decimated public housing stock around the nation. They give many Australians the means to remain independent of the need for government handouts. One Nation will never support the changes to capital gains and negative gearing in this bill. One Nation will keep the capital gains discount where it is. We will support negative gearing for up to two investment properties—incentivise people, give them that ability. This captures around 94 per cent of the approximate two million property investors in Australia who own only one or two properties. They're not the greedy property tycoons Labor pretends they are. They're just hardworking Australians who have sacrificed and saved to invest in an independent future. There's no credible reason to tax these people out of investing altogether, but that's what Labor wants.

This budget bill will drive more Australians into the working class poor. Labor hates independence. Labor loves dependence. Labor hates innovation and entrepreneurship. Labor loves to kill off with high taxation, record high energy costs and overregulation. This mob is made up of idiots who have never run a business or had a job not funded by taxpayer or corrupt union bosses. Labor believes it can tax and spend its way out of trouble, never mind the impact of inflation and interest rates. One Nation puts forward a different way, putting the lie to Labor's assertion we have no solutions. We need to cut government's out-of-control spending, which will reduce inflation, alleviate the pressure on the RBA not to increase interest rates. One Nation has identified at least $90 billion in spending cuts. At least a third of it comes from scrapping net zero. We suspect there's a lot more to be saved, because Labor carefully hides a lot of its net zero spending from the Australian people forced to pay for it. We know that a great deal more renewables infrastructure is in the pipeline—infrastructure that will cost taxpayers at least $1.4-plus trillion, another white elephant blow out like the Snowy 2.0. One Nation will scrap both, putting an end to government spending on this net zero obsession will reduce inflation and the cost of living. It will reduce the need for more taxpayer funded handouts dressed up as cost-of-living relief. It's not rocket science or brain surgery. It's basically common sense.

The Greens' deal with the Labor is absolutely disgusting. They are the biggest property holders. They've got theirs. They're passing this because they're grandfathered. They're looked after. They've got their properties. How many properties each are they? I think the most of any one party of everyone else, and yet they're quite happy to see this go through. You think you're looking after future generations. What a joke. (Time expired)