Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The only thing worse than being misled is being lied to, and this government told Australians that they would be better off under them. Four years ago they made that commitment, and, at the last budget, they again committed to making Australians' lives better off under Labor. Australians were promised relief and honesty, and instead what they got was higher costs and broken promises. Inflation is up higher than the rest of the OECD countries thanks to reckless spending under this government. Interest rates continue to increase, putting pressure on Australians right across the country. Real wages are back to 2011 levels under this government. Australians are working harder than ever before but falling further and further behind.

Everyday prices are surging under Labor. Coffee is up 26 per cent; the cost of bread, 22 per cent; and confectionary, 29 per cent. Domestic travel is up 27 per cent. Biscuits are up 22 per cent. Gas prices are up 42 per cent. Australia is out of step with economies that have been able to manage their own inflation and interest rates. This is a government whose reckless spending, whose wasteful ways are making Australians' lives harder in every way. We see more taxes and more spending because that is all that Labor knows how to do. Since August of 2025, New Zealand has cut its rates by 75 basis points. The United States has cut its rates by 75 basis points and Canada by 50 basis points. Even the United Kingdom has managed to cut its interests rates by 25 basis points. And yet Australia flies in the face of that sort of economic management, with interest rates up 75 basis points. Australia is the last country that still has rising rates.

Labor promised that power bills would fall by $275. Instead, electricity prices have surged by 32 per cent. Australians are being treated like an ATM by this government. Taxes are up, spending is up, interest rates are up. Labor claims to stand for workers, while ensuring that private-enterprise jobs are disappearing. Small businesses are under attack. We have seen small businesses failing at a greater rate than since we have started keeping records on this data. And remember that every small business that fails has behind it a mortgage, a family, somebody keen to take the initiative of making their own way, taking advantage of the opportunities of this country. Power costs, taxes, red tape and militant union deals are crushing confidence for small businesses, for families and, indeed, now for big businesses in this country. It's too hard to start a small business here. It's too hard to maintain a small business. Increasingly, the jobs in Australia are being funded by taxpayers. It's not growth, it's not growing an economy; it is taking the money out of the pockets of Australians and then putting it back through the other side. A healthy economy cannot survive on that kind of economic practice.

The Prime Minister promised integrity and accountability, but Australians now see spin, excuses and avoidance. The Prime Minister said he would never go missing in action, that he would always step up when Australians needed leadership, but instead he was nowhere to be seen on the weekend. A by-election in one of 150 electorates across the country, and the Prime Minister was completely invisible.

The policies designed in Canberra by Labor make it harder for regional Australians to operate. We are seeing just one-third of the amount of dollars spent on Medicare and medical expenditure on each Australian in the cities. The Prime Minister likes to flash around his Medicare card, but that is not worth very much once you leave the metropolitan places. The Prime Minister announces more childcare centres in places that don't have childcare centres. The Prime Minister talks about more housing in places that can't get access to trades. The Prime Minister says that he will grow Australia, and he absolutely is, with unfettered immigration—immigration that means that young Australians can't get into a home.

The Prime Minister promised that he would make it easier for Australians, and that is exactly the opposite to what every Australian is experiencing right now. Every Australian will tell you how much harder their life is under Albanese and this government. In the north, biosecurity is a mess. Border Force funding has been cut. There are fewer oversight flights. Illegal fishing boats are making landfall in Northern Australia. Biosecurity and national security are being ignored at our peril right across the country. Farmland is being lost under this government's crazy and ideological emissions campaigns. Eighty-two per cent renewables by 2030 means that millions of hectares of prime agricultural land are being lost to wind towers and solar farms. ABARES have warned of an additional 18 million hectares of land that will be lost to climate offsets.

Australia should have some of the cheapest energy in this country, but instead, taxes like the safeguards mechanism, like anti-coal, oil and gas legislation, mean that instead of Australians being blessed with cheap energy we have some of the most expensive energy on the planet. What does that mean? It means not only that Australians being the most on energy costs but also that we are losing more Australian manufacturing jobs in places like Victoria, where that government won't drill for gas onshore. The gas shortage in that place means that jobs are being offshored and lost to Victoria and lost to Australia.

Mining and resource projects are stalling. Australia used to enjoy 40 per cent of the world's LNG investment right here, but that has fallen to 15 per cent at a time when the world so desperately needs more investment and more gas. Australia should be the beneficiary of those investments, but, instead, approvals are getting harder. The government is funding organisations like the Environmental Defenders Office, an organisation that confected evidence and manufactured cultural heritage in order to try and stop the Barossa project off the coast of the Northern Territory. This government is making it harder for Australia to access and develop its wonderful and abundant resources, thanks to ideological targets and aims. We have insecure food. We have insecure energy. We have skyrocketing prices. We have a government whose taxation is being wasted on wasteful, reckless spending.

The coalition offers an alternative. We offer lower taxes and relief from bracket creep. We promise to reduce red tape, boost the housing supply, restore affordable energy and, importantly, increase gas supply and production. These are costs under Labor that Australians cannot continue to bear. Instead of being one of the world's wealthiest, most prosperous and free societies, Australians are labouring under Labor. Australians expect honesty. Millions of people are asking whether they are better off today than they were four years ago, when Labor was elected, because they are finding it very difficult to find the positives.

The coalition is focused on restoring our standard of living, protecting our way of life, rewarding hard work and being economically responsible instead of recklessly spending Australians' hard earned money. It is extraordinary, after four years, how much worse Australians are under this government than they were previously.