MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS
Dr WEBSTER (Mallee) (11:55): This budget from the Labor Party is a Trojan Horse. It looks okay on the outside, but dig a little deeper and you find out that, for regional Australians in particular, it is a shocker. We already bear the brunt and the cost of the renewable fantasy that this government has stuck to like glue.
The cost to our communities is division. The cost to our communities is that we cannot get on with the jobs that already should be happening in our electorates. Our farming land is being taken over by renewable enterprises funded by this government.
Do we know where the funding comes from for these projects? No. We don't know, because they're hidden in clever entities such as the CIS, the CEFC and the National Reconstruction Fund.
The list goes on. Australians are kept in the dark, and they don't know what is coming for them. In point of fact, it is a socialist dystopia that Bill Shorten tried to bring in—capital gains tax and attacks on negative gearing and trusts.
What else do they want to do? There was nothing honest— Mr Wallace: At least Bill had some courage. Dr WEBSTER: At least Bill had courage; he took it to an election.
And guess what? The Australian people didn't support it. What do we have?
We have a prime minister and a treasurer who are not honest with the people of Australia. They did not say—in fact, they deliberately said the opposite—that they would be attacking CGT, negative gearing or trusts. And here we are.
They say that it is about ensuring 'intergenerational equity'. What a title! It is an absolute con.
It is a Trojan Horse, because, in actual fact, it is our younger people who will not have those tools. CGT, negative gearing, trusts and the ability to build wealth and aspiration are being taken away from them. It's older people who will be able to keep such benefits, because they're going to be grandfathered.
This is shonky, and I could use a whole bunch of other words to describe it. This budget is not for regional Australians, and it is not for young people, as this government want to say that it is. Labor talks about equity.
The words of the National Rural Health Alliance's Susi Tegen come to mind. She said on budget night: There is … no reference to how the government will implement the National Health Reform Agreement Schedule F: Better Health Equity for Rural and Remote Communities— which has been agreed to already. It will take effect in—guess how long—two months.
In fact, it will take effect in less than two months—six weeks. But there is no funding for it. What is going on that this government can make promises and then walk away from them as though it doesn't matter?
It absolutely does matter, and people who live in regional Australia are feeling it. There's no funding for health care, no funding for aged care and no answers to the problems they face every day. I acknowledge the member for Cowper, who just spoke about the cost of living in his electorate.
You know what? It's same same in my electorate and same same for the next speaker, my colleague the member for Lyne. Mr Wallace: And Fisher.
Dr WEBSTER: And Fisher—absolutely. The member for Fisher tells me right now that it's the same for him. Our people are suffering under this government, and what is this budget bringing for them?
Absolutely nothing. It is bringing no funding for regional communications—in fact, regional communications funding has been cut—no funding for mobile black spots and no funding for regional connectivity. They've taken away the funding for the Regional Tech Hub.
It is an unbelievable disgrace that this government walks away from the people it says it is leading, for all Australians. 'No-one held back, no-one left behind'—yes, we know the words, Prime Minister. We hear them often enough, just like we heard you say you would not attack the capital gains tax or negative gearing or trusts—but here we are. So what does that make the words of this prime minister?
I can tell you: absolutely not to be trusted. There are so many Australians right now who do not trust politicians—well, what a shock! Why would that be, when they've got a prime minister who is not telling the truth to Australians before an election and then comes out and says: 'Oh, it's the right choice.
It is the right policy for the right time.' I'm sorry, Australians are not that gullible. We don't believe what you say, Prime Minister. Every day we get the same story, and we don't believe it.
Tuesday's budget is divisive, setting one generation against another, pitting the older generation as the bad guys or the cash cows, or both, so Labor can pretend they are doing the right thing by the younger generation—as I said, the Trojan horse. They've deployed the influencers to sell the budget, and it's falling flat. Labor's reckless spending is bequeathing $1.2 trillion of debt to the younger generation.
It is not just the younger generation; it is their children and their children's children that are going to be paying off this debt into who knows how long into the future. Intergenerational equity? Give me a break!
Are you joking? They can use all the spin they like, but the fact of the matter is it's not true. The very tools that gave older people an advantage, such as capital gains tax and negative gearing trusts, are being removed for our younger people.
What a con! Speaking of cons, how's this? Despite the finance minister saying they're pulling back on climate spending, Labor is spending another $12.3 billion on net zero commitments over the next few years and $18.3 billion over the next decade or so.
That brings Labor's total net zero spending to $80 billion. As I said before, that's if you don't consider all the other entities they are funding on the closed books; nobody can know what is actually being spent. I can tell you right now that the people of Mallee are not happy about that announcement.
They are very unhappy because it's their farms that are being railroaded through the push from the federal government and the support from the Victorian Labor government to ensure these renewable projects go ahead. I can tell you right now, I'm meeting with over 100 farmers on Wednesday in Mallee with the new Leader of the Nationals, Matt Canavan, and shadow minister Darren Chester, the member for Gippsland.
They're coming down to meet with my farmers because my farmers are very angry with the Labor government, and they have all the right to be. It's their land that's being ripped up, and there are no consequences for this Labor government to continue bulldozing, literally, through Mallee. It's ironic hearing a government use the word 'equity' to describe the creation of the intergenerational divide between older and younger people, when the gross inequity that we in the Nationals know, sadly, all too well is the inequity between the city and the bush.
This is literally the prime minister who has brought the greatest division to our country, going back to the Voice—which was never flagged prior to the election. What else is going to come from this prime minister that has never been flagged with the Australian people prior to an election? Setting older against younger Australians, setting city Australians against those in the bush, is an outrage.
And his dealing with antisemitism over the last couple of years—what awful leadership, if you can call it leadership. This budget is simply another nail in the coffin for regional Australians. Worse, it continues to bring division to Australians.
I can tell you the truth. I'm not impressed, and my electorate's not impressed.