MATTERS OF URGENCY

Senator CHANDLER (Tasmania) (16:50): It is very clear from this motion what the Greens want. They want to see bigger government. They want government in your lives every day, getting bigger and bigger.

But it puzzles me that we have an urgency motion on this here in the Senate chamber today, because, under this Labor government, thanks to their reckless spending, we already have the biggest government on record—and that already comes at a high cost to Australians. The Greens are also concerned about worse services, but that is also what Australians are already seeing under this Labor government.

The budget delivered back in May contained higher taxes for Australians, reduced support for older Australians, reduced support for veterans—the list goes on. In contrast, the coalition is focused on shaping a smaller government that delivers the essential services that Australians rely on, taking the pressure off inflation and interest rates, and restoring our living standards.

We know that spending should be prudent and responsible, minimising the need to collect additional tax and to further burden Australian families and small businesses. Under this Labor government, government spending has hit its highest point in four decades outside of the pandemic. That is the equivalent of every taxpayer having to pay $5,000 extra each and every year.

Because of Labor's out-of-control spending, Australians are paying more for everything due to high inflation. Rising demand from government has reduced the labour and capital available for the private sector, leading to higher inflation and higher interest rates. Inflation today is higher in Australia than in every major advanced economy, and it has been well above the RBA's target band for the past 11 months—well before the conflict that broke out in Iran.

This has resulted in interest rates today sitting at their highest level since 2011, under the former Labor government, after 15 interest rate rises. Roy Morgan measures that more than 1½ million households are suffering mortgage stress right now. Under Labor, our living standards have recorded the largest collapse in our history and in the developed world.

This expansion of the government's share of the economy is also weighing on Australia's productivity. It is not a pretty picture. To fund its spending addiction, this Labor government has increased taxes on families and small businesses, and it's hiding the true cost of its fiscal mismanagement by pushing more and more spending off-budget.

But 'off-budget' simply means 'off the balance sheet'. The spending is still there and taxpayers are still paying for it. Labor's budget shows deep and deteriorating deficits totalling $150 billion over five years.

On top of this, there is another $114 billion of hidden spending on the balance sheet, taking the real, deep structural deficits to well over $264 billion. This government was warned right back at the start of 2023 by the IMF that the proliferation of the federal government's so-called off-budget funds risked adding to inflation pressures. What have Australians seen as a result of the billions spent on these funds?

We've had reporting by the Financial Review that almost half of the $15 billion in the National Reconstruction Fund is now designed to bleed taxpayer cash with investments that do not clear the government's borrowing costs. The $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, at last count, has only completed 1,432 homes, and it's as clear as mud whether those completed homes were actually built or merely acquired.

The HAFF is so bad that the ANAO has audited the scheme. It's also audited the management of the $20 billion Rewiring the Nation Fund. Under the coalition's plan, we will end Labor's corporate welfare like the National Reconstruction Fund; end Labor's climate bureaucracy, including Rewiring the Nation; and end Labor's housing bureaucracy, namely their flagship Housing Australia Future Fund.

Labor's failed attempts at public interventions into the private sector are highlighting exactly why we have to focus on the delivery of essential services. All of these funds, remember, were seeded with billions in borrowed money and Australians have the trillion dollars debt bomb, growing to $1.25 trillion, to show for it. When that happens, interest payments will hit more than $42 billion a year, or more than $80,000 a minute.

The Greens talk of higher costs. Australians know they are already paying the higher costs of this government. They have the higher interest bill and the higher taxes to show for it.