Rome didn't just fall in one day. It was sold in instalments—a little gold to buy peace, a few foreign soldiers to fill the ranks. Each deal made sense at the time and nobody thought that they were ending an empire. They thought they were being practical. They traded their freedom for convenience. You've probably heard of the bread-and-circuses quote from the Roman poet Juvenal. What few people are aware of is that Juvenal was lamenting a political state in which Roman people had become so rich and comfortable that they were unwilling to discuss or consider the trade-offs. They preferred the bread and circuses to the hard business of governing themselves.

When we consider convenience, there's a question every household and every small business can answer: what happens when you spend more than you earn year after year? And the simple answer is you go broke. Yet this government is doing exactly that and keeps telling us it's fine.

Now, let me be clear. I will always back a safety net. A decent society looks after the sick, the frail and the unlucky. And I'll never apologise for that. But a safety net was never meant to be a way of life. We stopped asking what it costs or who pays. For every $3 that Canberra spends, $1 goes to social security and welfare. In Britain the government pays more in interest than it spends on its armed forces. A nation that stood alone against tyranny in 1940 now pays its creditors more than its defenders.

Our kids are the ones who pay. A generation already locked out of housing is inheriting debt it never chose. Labor's answer to every problem seems to be a new payment, a new bailout, a new rebate or a new subsidy. And when you ask them who's paying, they go quiet. The Labor government don't have a single dollar that belongs to them. Every dollar they spend is taken from a hardworking Australian. Take the NDIS, a scheme we should all be proud of. It now costs more than $40 billion a year and is growing faster than the economy that pays for it.

My own side don't have an unblemished record, but we have proven what can be achieved. Just 20 years ago, the coalition paid off national debt completely. But more recently, during COVID, we showed less of that restraint we were known for. We all have to do better. Politicians didn't do this alone. We spend because voters ask us to and electorally punish those who suggest spending less.

Let me say something personal. I love this country and, like you, I feel it changing. I feel it slipping away. The Australia my children are growing up in is not the Australia I grew up in. My first mortgage was a mere $96,000. My eldest daughter now needs more than that for a deposit, and her real wages haven't kept pace with inflation. So the question isn't whether we can change course. It's whether we will, because it can be done, and it has been done before. It seems that Labor's answer to every problem is to try and spend their way out of it. But a nation cannot spend its way into lasting prosperity. Government must focus on defending our nation, upholding the rule of law, supporting decent health care and education, and providing the infrastructure our economy depends on. But beyond those responsibilities every government program, grant or agency should have to justify its existence. We must stop handing taxpayers' money to favoured industries, vested interests and activist organisations. Every dollar government spends is a dollar we have taken from a hardworking Australian, and every dollar wasted is a dollar that the taxpayer could have spent supporting their family or investing in business.

Changing this culture of dependency will not be an easy feat. And those who argue restraint will, of course, be called heartless. But the real cruelty is leaving our children a mountain of debt they never chose. There is nothing moral about borrowing money for our kids to repay because it leads to the greatest cruelty of all, which is allowing future generations to inherit a country less free and less prosperous than the one we inherited. Australia was not built by big government. It was built by Australians who took risks, worked hard, raised families and just got on with it. It's time now for government to do less so that the Australian people may do more.

Senate adjourned at 20 : 15