Treasury Laws Amendment (Financial Reporting System Reform) Bill 2026

Senator LIDDLE (South Australia—Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate) (13:25): The coalition strongly opposes the Treasury Laws Amendment (Financial Reporting System Reform) Bill 2026 because it tells Australians what they already know about this government's priorities. We know what its record is like because we've seen it in the last few weeks. Here's another Treasury bill, another sham.

Australians are battling cost-of-living pressures, choosing between food and health care, while government spending sits at a 40-year high outside of a recession, and Labor has focused its resources on creating more bureaucracy. Labor is not focused on productivity. It's not focused on the real generators of jobs, and it's not the public sector.

It should never be the public sector. It should be a private sector working to employ, to exchange money with people who work hard in return for it and who get to choose what they do when they earn that money. More bureaucracy, more red tape—that's the story of this Labor government and its time in government.

Australians rightfully want a government focused on the real pressures hitting households and small businesses. Day in, day out, they're working hard, but we're not seeing that in this place. We see legislation coming into this place rushed through without the proper oversight, without any regard for getting the most appropriate experts into the room and giving them the time to unpack, to consider, to apply and to reflect on the implications.

Instead, what we have in here is legislation that comes through and changes—changes upon changes made after it's been brought into this place. If that's how you're running legislation, Australians should know how you're running the country. It was surely on show in the last few weeks.

Households are under pressure, and the government is busy creating bureaucracy while older Australians are weighing up whether they can afford their next insurance premium after the government strips away their private health insurance rebates. Again, these are older people who've planned for their future, who've thought hard about this, and Labor just comes in and says, 'Nah, we just think we might do this instead,' or, worse, they say, 'We're not going to do this,' and they do it anyway.

That's not helping Australia, that's not helping Australians, and it's not helping those hardworking Australians who relied on themselves to plan for their future, to plan for their safety and to plan for the unexpected. The only thing unexpected is what government does to them, and you haven't even given them the time to plan sufficiently for that. It's hard to imagine how a government can become so disconnected from the very people it purports to represent.

Let's talk about financial services. Australians expect this parliament to focus on the real pressures hitting households and small businesses every day: insurance affordability, regional and suburban bank closures, protection from scams and access to affordable financial advice. Instead, what we see is the finance minister in this place coming in here and complaining about me not being in this chamber to speak.

Well, I'm speaking now about your sham inquiry and your sham legislation. What you should be talking about is not individuals, but you, yourselves, and what you're doing to this country, to this economy and to people who've planned for their futures. None of that is reasonable and none of that's okay.

We heard expert after expert talking about and providing advice— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Scarr ): Now, Senator Liddle, it being 1.30, we'll proceed to two-minute statements, and you'll be in continuation when debate resumes. Debate interrupted.