The Senate will now consider the proposal, under standing order 75, from Senator Collins, which is also shown at item 13 of today's Order of Business:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need to expose the Albanese Government's increasingly desperate attempts to convince Australians they are better off, when real wages are falling, housing is becoming less affordable and, as Labor elder Bill Kelty has warned, Australians cannot pay their bills with the Treasurer's economic spin.

Is consideration of the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerks will set the clock in line with the informal arrangements made by the whips.

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need to expose the Albanese Government's increasingly desperate attempts to convince Australians they are better off, when real wages are falling, housing is becoming less affordable and, as Labor elder Bill Kelty has warned, Australians cannot pay their bills with the Treasurer's economic spin.

This is an urgent matter because we heard here, in question time yesterday, that the government continues to deceive the Australian people about the economy, and so I rise to expose the Albanese Labor government's increasingly desperate attempts to convince Australians they are better off, because they are not. I say to Australia that, if you feel poorer, that's because you are poorer. The Treasurer offers clever economic spin, but, as Labor luminary Bill Kelty warns, everyday Australians cannot pay their bills with the Treasurer's broken promises while real wages are falling and housing is becoming completely unaffordable. Everything costs more under Labor.

Look at Labor's trifecta of housing failure: fewer homes, higher rents and smashed market confidence. Property tax changes under Labor's budget will stunt construction and lower our national GDP by $1 billion. Let's look closer at the human impact. We now see reports that first home buyers under the five per cent deposit scheme now in negative equity has jumped fivefold in one single month. Young Australians were sold a dud policy and are now financially worse off because of Labor's economic gaslighting. That is why this motion is urgent. Australians need to understand what they are getting themselves into in Labor's bad policy, and, every day that passes, the Labor government pushes a narrative that is simply not true.

The Australian people need to hear this debate because the longer it continues, the more misinformation that is peddled. Here we are in the Senate to correct the record today. Let's return to housing. Under Labor, just 173,000 homes are built a year, falling roughly 335,000 short of its own 1.2 million home target. At the same time, builders are going broke. Nearly 13,000 construction businesses have suffered insolvency since Labor took office. That is 60 builders collapsing every single week. The coalition brought more homes every year than Labor, and we didn't need a defective $40 billion housing fund to do so.

Rents have soared 24.8 per cent under Labor, vastly outstripping wage growth of 16.1 per cent, with the median rent sitting at $670 a week. By Labor's own admission, its budget tax hikes mean higher rents and 35,000 fewer homes over the next decade. You simply cannot tax your way out of a housing shortage. Housing has never been less affordable. Mortgage affordability reached an all-time low in 2025-26.

Now, let's talk wage theft. Australians are going backwards, plain and simple. Labor's reckless spending is driving up inflation and everyday workers are paying the price. The latest ABS data exposes the reality: wages rose just 0.8 per cent in the June quarter, reaching 3.2 per cent annually. Headline inflation hit 3.8 per cent over the same period. That means a 0.6 per cent real pay cut for Australian workers. Your hard work is buying less than it did last year.

Instead of reining in out-of-control budget spending, the Albanese government refuses to tame the inflation beast. Labor's policy choices actively smash household budgets, leaving families poorer at the checkout, at the bowser and on their mortgages. Adding insult to injury, public sector wages grew at 3.4 per cent. Bureaucrats are pulling ahead while taxpayers foot the bill. At the same time, every pay rise Australians have had has been completely wiped out by Labor's homegrown inflation crisis. Real wages are back at the levels of 2011. The verdict is clear: Labor's economic failures are shrinking your pay cheque. Australians can't afford this government.

Here's the urgency. Here's our message: there is a better way. The coalition's plan to fix the economy and protect our way of life will cap migration to housing completions, invest $5 billion in infrastructure to unlock 400,000 homes, slash construction red tape by up to $70,000 per build and axe Labor's housing taxes. Better yet, our tax back guarantee will end wage theft by indexing income tax thresholds to inflation, delivering $250 in relief in year 1, scaling to $1,000 in year 4. Ending bracket creep is bold economic policy. We will deliver lower taxes, cheaper power, less migration and more homes to get Australia back on track.

In response to this motion put by Senator Collins, I remind the chamber that when Labor came to government the wage share of national income was sitting at 49 per cent. Today, under our government, it is 54.3 per cent—the highest it has been in a decade. That's because our government is creating jobs and getting wages moving again.

When we came to office real wages were in freefall, and it has taken sensible and disciplined economic management to turn that around. Let's be clear about where that damage that we inherited on coming to government came from. Two-thirds of the fall in real wages since the 2001 peak happened on the coalition's watch, so it's always a little strange when those opposite walk into this place and claim that they're better economic managers. Frankly, the evidence just doesn't stack up.

We shouldn't sugarcoat things. These are tough times. Inflation is higher than any of us would like, and real wages have slipped in the most recent data. Globally, the pressure is on, and we know that it's tough for people out there, but, if we look at the bigger picture, wages have grown in eight of the last 11 quarters. Those opposite have shown, time and time again, that they don't believe in higher wages for Australians. In fact, when they were last in government, they had a deliberate policy of keeping wages down. That's no solution to the cost of living for Australian families.

Our government is focused on pulling every lever we can to help Aussie families while those opposite vote against our plan for higher wages and vote against our plan for tax cuts time and time again. It doesn't make any sense. When we back workers, when we back families, the Liberal Party stand in the way. It's as simple as that. Whenever we have stepped in to help Australians with the cost of living, those opposite have taken every opportunity to vote against it, to stand in the way of that work. Tax cuts, wage rises, our plan to build more homes, our tax changes for housing investors, cheaper medicines, bulk-billing, fully funding our public schools, better funding for public hospitals—the list goes on and on and on.

We're all familiar, I'm sure, with the line from Benjamin Franklin, 'In this world, nothing can be said to be certain except for death and taxes.' But what seems to be certain right now is that the Liberal Party will stand in the way of our work to help Australians with the cost of living. Labor has cut income taxes five times in five ways since coming to government. That's $3,000 a year back in the pockets of the average workers by 2028. I don't see how those opposite can call that economic spin. That is real money back in the pockets of Australians. We know people are doing it tough, and the first port of call is cutting taxes and lifting their wages.

Does anyone in this chamber remember the genius idea the Liberals took to the last election? No, I'm not talking about the $600 billion nuclear plan. No, I'm not talking about their attacks on working from home. I'm not even talking about their plan to gut the Public Service so that 41,000 Aussies would lose their jobs. I'm not even talking about their plan for higher taxes. I'm talking about their idea that the bosses should get taxpayer funded lunches. I think some people in this chamber had forgotten about that, but I tell you what, I haven't forgotten about that. Absolutely insane. That was their solution to the cost of living at the last election. It's almost laughable.

In contrast, Labor wants workers to earn more and keep more of what they earn. We will continue to do what we can to help Australians with the cost of living and to deliver real change.

The neoliberal project so beloved of Labor and coalition governments over many decades has broken Australia's social contract. People used to be told that if they worked hard, if they got a good education, they could afford the basics that we all need to lead a good and dignified life. But we can't say that to young people anymore. Just ask any young person how things are going for them right now. Youth allowance is below the poverty line. Young people are working two or three jobs just to get through uni. They're paying tens of thousands of dollars for a degree their parents and just about everyone in government got for free, while they watch artificial intelligence smash their future career opportunities. If they do get a job, their wages are buying less and less and less over time. Meanwhile, it's almost impossible to buy a house unless you've got super wealthy parents, which leaves most young people living in rentals where the landlord can hike the rents just as often as they can get away with. And you've got climate change and international geopolitical instability looming large over all of that.

Labor has been in power for four years and things are getting worse, not better, for young Australians. Bill Kelty is absolutely right that the Treasurer's economic spin is insulting, and it's particularly insulting for young people. Honestly, Labor sometimes forget they're even in government. They need to make a choice—a choice to do something, a choice to make young people's lives better rather than just produce spin while young people watch their future turn to dust. Here are just five things that Labor could do today, right now, to improve the lives of young people here in Australia—make TAFE and uni genuinely free, freeze rents, put dental and mental health into Medicare, stop approving new coal and gas mines and stop supporting the genocide in Palestine. You can pay for what you need to pay for out of that list by making big corporations and the superwealthy one per cent pay their fair share of tax. Unlike Labor, the Greens will always be here for young Australians.

Labor is in crisis. Labor's budget is in crisis. Labor luminaries are now criticising Labor prime ministers and Labor treasurers. None other than Bill Kelty, the former secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, has called it out. He has said that the approach of Dr Jim Chalmers, the Labor Treasurer, is insulting to voters. Bill Kelty has said that Labor is actively isolating itself from traditional Labor voters. Bill Kelty has said that Labor's spin will not fix the economy.

'Who is Bill Kelty?' I hear you ask. Bill Kelty is the architect of the Prices and Incomes Accord. He is part-architect of compulsory superannuation in this country. He is part-architect of restoring Medicare. He is part-architect of the consolidation of the Australian trade union movement in our recent past. So this is no ordinary Labor person criticising the Labor Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, and the Labor Treasurer. This is, if you like, the king of the Australian labour movement criticising the Labor Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, and the Labor Treasurer, Jim Chalmers.

But Bill Kelty is just saying to Australians what they already know—that life has got much harder for Australians and that Australian families are getting poorer and poorer by the day. After four years of the Albanese Labor government, Australians are working harder than ever but falling further behind. Every trip to the supermarket costs more. Electricity bills continue to rise. Insurance premiums have surged. Mortgage repayments remain painfully high and will go higher if economist predictions are correct. Those predictions are for two further RBA rate rises in this year alone. Rents continue to climb, and small businesses are struggling under higher wages, higher energy costs, higher borrowing costs and an ever-growing mountain of regulation.

This is not bad luck. It is the consequence of four years of economic mismanagement by this Albanese Labor government. Labor has fuelled inflation through reckless spending and then quietly profited through bracket creep. Australians who receive a pay rise simply to keep pace with inflation are pushed into higher brackets and pay more tax despite being no better off. Labor calls it economic management. It is stealth tax on hard work and aspiration.

Nowhere is Labor's failure more obvious than on housing. The Albanese government encouraged thousands of young Australians into the housing market with just a five per cent deposit while simultaneously driving demand through record migration and failing to increase housing supply. As housing markets have cooled and economists warn now of further price falls, thousands of first home buyers, particularly in Perth's outer suburbs in my home state, are being left exposed to negative equity, owing more on their mortgage than their home is worth. These young Western Australians did exactly what the government encouraged them to do. They worked hard, they saved for their deposit and they bought their first home. Labor has rewarded that ambition by leaving many burdened with record debt and virtually no financial buffer. Of course, Labor's record migration has only made the matter worse. Population growth has far outstripped housing construction, placing ever greater pressure on housing affordability, rents and essential infrastructure.

There is a better way. The coalition will restore balance by ensuring that migration is linked to the nation's capacity to build homes and to provide the infrastructure communities need. The coalition also believes that Australians should come first. Our migration and welfare systems must prioritise Australian citizens, protect the integrity of our borders and ensure that those who embrace Australian values and contribute to our nation are the most welcomed, while maintaining a sustainable migration program that works in Australia's national interest. Labor is in crisis. The budget is in tatters, and Labor voters around the country are now being left with nowhere to hide. Things are about to get significantly worse for Australian families under Labor.

I think that what this debate is actually showing this afternoon is the increasingly desperate attempts from those opposite to try to convince Australians that the coalition are better economic managers. It's actually the coalition that is in crisis, not Labor. Australians know better. They can see the track record that is relevant and credible when it comes to who has the backs of workers and who can manage the economy.

I'm not sure about urgent, but this motion is quite remarkable, if only because it requires those opposite to ignore their own record and their own policies on exactly this matter. Those over there want to lecture the Australian community about wages, cost of living and housing affordability. When Labor came into government back in 2022, inflation was higher and rising, interest rates were rising, and real wages were going backwards. In fact, real wages were falling by 3.6 per cent. That didn't happen by accident. It happened because those opposite viewed low wage growth as a feature of their economic strategy. Those opposite spent a decade presiding over wage stagnation. It's getting really tedious to hear lectures on wage growth from the political party that treated low wage growth as an economic achievement. They could not even bring themselves to support a modest increase in the minimum wage for Australia's lowest paid workers. When I say modest, it was $1 an hour—a $1 increase that those opposite could not support. Don't lecture us about wages.

Senator Collins talked about wage theft, yet the coalition voted against the laws to criminalise wage theft. You've suddenly realised that Australians want higher wages. What a shame that you spent a decade suppressing them. Let's not forget that you voted against other workplace reforms, like same job, same pay and multi-employer bargaining. Does that ring a bell? These are the real policies that help move wages.

Far from relying on a narrative, as Senator Collins talked about, we have focused on action. This government has backed minimum wage increases. We have backed increases to the modern award because we understand the simple truth—one of the best ways to help with Australians' cost of living is to help Australians earn more. The latest ABS data shows that nominal wages have grown above three per cent for 16 consecutive quarters. It's the first time this has occurred in 17 years. Not once during the 35 quarters of the former government did wage growth exceed three per cent. Is there more to do? Of course there is, but we are getting on with it. No-one on this side of the chamber pretends otherwise. We recognise that there is more to do, and so we've implemented practical measures that make a difference—higher wages, tax cuts for every taxpayer, six months of paid parental leave, cheaper child care, cheaper medicines and policies that continue to bring inflation down. Meanwhile, those opposite vote against these practical measures, and, instead of admitting why they're doing it—that is, because they don't want working Australians to earn more—they hide behind the words of Bill Kelty.

Then we come to housing. The opposition's housing analysis seems to consist of reading the headline and skipping the article. It's a bit like declaring that winter is over because yesterday was warmer than the day before. Like all good Victorians, I know about a false spring. They saw one quarterly figure, got excited and forgot to check what happened over the previous 12 months. They consider a 0.3 per cent dip to be a housing crash. Let me put this into perspective. When the Howard government first implemented their investor tax breaks 26 years ago, the average dwelling price was equal to nine years and four months worth of disposable household income. Today, it is equal to 17 years and four months of that income. That is because, between 1997 and 2025, property values grew three times faster than wages.

At the centre of this is something very obvious. We need to make it easier for people to buy their first home. That is why our focus is on improving wage growth and levelling the playing field for first home buyers. The coalition, meanwhile, want to focus on headlines. They do not support our measures and they do not have a sensible proposal of their own. We're increasing supply and tackling the structural causes of the housing shortage. What we're not doing is pretending that one quarterly statistic changes the underlying picture. Australians know there is more work to do and that we are getting on with doing it. (Time expired)

I thank Senator Collins for this motion, which One Nation supports. Labor elder Bill Kelty has warned that Australians cannot pay their bills with the Treasurer's spin. Last week, the Treasurer indulged in spin yet again when he said that six out of seven jobs created during the Albanese government were in the private sector. No, they were not. Seventy per cent of the jobs created under Treasurer Chalmers are in the care economy, which is government funded, not the private sector. This did not stop the Minister for Finance, though, repeating the line yesterday in question time. Truth be damned with you lot!

The Labor government is running up deficits to directly fund jobs to keep the economy from going into a recession. We are already in a per capita recession! Net zero madness and insane regulations are destroying huge numbers of private sector jobs. Mosaic Brands lost 950 jobs; Fortescue, 700 jobs; and Telstra, another 650 jobs. The Whyalla steelworks lost 600 jobs yesterday, although Minister Bowen's $1.9 billion handout of taxpayer money to fund a green steel arc furnace powered using weather-dependent solar and wind is still trying. Taxpayers can kiss that money goodbye. The Tomago smelter stood to lose 1,000 jobs until the government bailed them out with $2.5 billion of taxpayers' money to secure heavily subsidised, expensive power in the Hunter. It's a shame local residents didn't get the same deal. They're really struggling from high electricity prices and high petrol prices, after the Labor government reversed the fuel excise cut and put fuel up 32c a litre yesterday.

Under Treasurer Chalmers, Australian wages have gone backwards by five per cent. Headline inflation is at three per cent and rising, outpacing wage rises, forcing mortgage rates up and trapping many people who signed up for the Treasurer's five per cent deposit scheme in negative equity. 'Spin' doesn't come close to expressing the anger everyday Australians are feeling towards the Albanese government.

I thank Senator Collins for bringing this important urgency motion before us today. Despite all the promises and announcements, it is clear that this government is failing to deliver the relief that Australian families need from this relentless cost-of-living pressure that they are all under. The economic mismanagement of this government is astounding, and it's been felt right across Australia.

In my home state of Western Australia, the West Australian reported a story last week about the economic pain that's been felt by one couple in Perth. This couple pays about $2,450 per month towards the mortgage for their two-by-one villa. Another rate rise this month would likely add at least $50 to that figure. This is how they put it:

Why should we bear the brunt of bad management? Surely there are better ways and more meaningful ways in the long term to try to sort this wild inflation out.

Well, they're right. They shouldn't be bearing the brunt of the bad management of this government. Unfortunately, more economic pain is coming for households, and nothing this government is doing is doing anything at all to alleviate it.

Labor Party luminary Bill Kelty was spot on when he said that real wages have fallen by five per cent. He said:

Real wages are not improving in any significant way—they're falling.

Well, that's true. You only had to visit the state electorate of Secret Harbour during the recent by-election to know just how unimpressed voters are with the smoke and mirrors and the economic tricks that are presented by this government. They know that every time they buy groceries, fill up their car or pay for things they are seeing the impact of inflation that's more than it should be. With oil again reaching $110 a barrel at one point in overnight trade, these voters know that even more pain is coming and that another interest rate rise is likely. Financial markets today have already priced in an 84 per cent chance that rates will go up later this month.

The voters in Secret Harbour know that when the Treasurer says workers should be happy because their wage share is increasing but their real wages are falling it's just ridiculous. Bill Kelty was also right when he said it's ridiculous and it's insulting. I've been saying for quite some time in this place that if this government does not get fair dinkum about national productivity Australian families will continue to see their standard of living decline. The government has two jobs: break inflation and fix productivity. Australians are working harder than ever, yet too many families are finding it harder and harder to get ahead. Every extra dollar spent on groceries, fuel, electricity or mortgages is a dollar that cannot be spent on building a better future for themselves and their families. After four years of promises, Australians are entitled to ask: where is the plan to genuinely reduce those cost-of-living pressures?

Temporary rebates and headline announcements are no substitute for long-term economic reform. Australia cannot spend its way out of inflation, nor can it regulate its way to prosperity. The key to restoring living standards is higher productivity, lower inflation and stronger economic growth. Businesses need confidence to invest, workers need opportunities to advance, and families need relief from the relentless cost-of-living increases. But the warning signs are flashing red. The latest NAB monthly business survey found business confidence remains well below its long-run average, while business conditions have fallen into negative territory for the first time in six years. Businesses are telling this government that higher costs, weaker demand and economic uncertainty are making it harder to invest, grow and enable Australians to employ more people.

Australians deserve an economic plan that rewards effort, encourages enterprise and lifts those living standards. Until this government gets serious about tackling inflation and improving productivity, households will continue to fall behind. Australians expect better from this government. They expect more from this government, and they are demanding more and better performance from this government.

The question is that the urgency motion as moved by Senator Collins be agreed.