STATEMENTS BY SENATORS
Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (13:25): Taxation is an anchor on productivity growth, reducing wealth creation for all Australians. The Treasurer has produced a budget that overtaxes and undersupports productivity. The social alliance—the Labor Party, the Greens and teals—have never seen a dollar they don't think belongs to the government to finance their woke UN social agenda.
The Treasurer learnt, from the weight of public opinion, that his new capital gains tax threatened future productivity within the business sector and the investment market. He fails to understand that when you take too much of people's wealth, they stop creating new wealth. One example is young people using small-dollar investments in things like crypto to grow their home deposit faster and get into the housing market before they get too old to pay off a 30-year loan, which is what most young people said they intend to do with their capital gains.
Because of these new taxes, young people will purchase fewer homes. It's one example of stifling economic growth in favour of short-term tax grabs. The government has disincentivised productive risk-takers: investors.
Business owners are punished, and overtaxed workers are conditioned to blame their employers for economic hardship. This sets workers against workers—more division from a divisive government. Instead, the true culprit is government's acute failure to contain inflation and tighten its own belt.
In fact, the Treasurer is still spending money he doesn't have on things this country does not need, such as $3.8 billion for Victoria's Suburban Rail Loop—billions that, like the billions before, will disappear into the pockets of organised crime and eventually produce a railway from nowhere to nowhere that nobody wants, and, according to Victoria's Parliamentary Budget Office, will cost over $200 billion.
That cost is in addition to the fraud and corruption in Big Build projects. The Commonwealth government is just getting started shovelling money into the Allan government's black hole. Meanwhile, businesses are collapsing at record rates, and small business bankruptcies are at record levels.
The public sector is bloating; two thirds of full-time equivalent jobs that the Albanese government conjured since 2022 are taxpayer funded through some arm of government, notably the NDIS. For years I've said that for every job created in solar and wind—so-called renewables—two jobs are lost in the productive economy. Data now verifies this.
That's not sustainable. No wonder the government refused to support my motion to implement indexation of tax brackets to stop bracket creep. This government needs higher taxes to pay for this level of public service growth.
Private enterprise can no longer provide the jobs needed to grow the economy and create new wealth for our huge number of new arrivals. At some point, this Ponzi scheme will come crashing down and a One Nation government will have to clean up the mess. This is how we'll do it.
Real productivity comes from cheap, reliable, Australian sourced energy. It's good roads connecting regions with cities. It's high-speed rail lines and Australian controlled ports.
It's fuel refineries guaranteeing supply when the world is in crisis. It's a competitive construction industry. It's cutting petty, unnecessary red tape, and green and blue tape from the UN and foreign agencies.
It's high-speed, reliable internet everywhere, including along highways and in regional areas. It's the freedom to take risks and earn a reward. It's a reliable nation of stable economic rules to encourage investment.
This will be life under a One Nation government; real, breadwinner jobs and the freedom to keep more of your own money to enjoy life. Our policies detail how One Nation will invest $30 billion a year in Australia's infrastructure to drive productivity and increase wealth for everyday Australians without having to work harder. Everyday Australians are working hard enough.
Polls show One Nation is the most popular party amongst working Australians. We will fulfil your faith in us. A lot of this infrastructure is private finance, not taxpayers.
In working with companies promoting new infrastructure projects, I'm amazed to see how much finance is available for these projects. Merchant banks and investors are jack of so-called solar and wind renewables. They want bricks and mortar investments again.
We'll give it to them. One Nation knows private sector productivity requires placing trust and respect in businesses, freeing them of unnecessary cost burdens to hire staff, reward the hardest workers and voluntarily pay above the minimum wage. To ensure this does not turn into a corporate free-for-all, we have a system of industrial relations tribunals and competition protections.
Our policy is to grow the economy, to create wealth and opportunity for all—businesses and workers. This is why our policy is to expand funding for the ACCC and the Administrative Review Tribunal, to protect workers rights. Polls show, as I said, One Nation is the most popular party among working Australians.
We will fulfil your faith in us. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Ghosh ): We are now moving into two-minute statements.