MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Mr VENNING (Grey) (16:03): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for bringing this matter of public importance to the House. This morning Australians got another update on the economy. The jobless rate has jumped to 4.5 per cent.
Last month, 15,800 Aussies lost work. The participation rate fell, too, down to 66.9 per cent—fewer jobs and fewer people looking for one. That is not an economy turning the corner.
That is an economy going backwards. Last year the Prime Minister and the Treasurer told this country we had turned the corner on inflation. Four and a half years in, they have nobody to blame but themselves.
Since Labor came to office, Australians have had the biggest fall in living standards in the developed world. GDP per capita has gone backwards in 10 of the last 15 quarters. Power bills are up by 40 per cent, and real wages have been down in every one of the 16 quarters since Labor took office.
For every $100 pay rise, Labor's 'inflationferno' has taken $111. The average full-time worker's wage has trailed inflation by $1,600 a year. Australians are working harder but going backwards.
In my electorate of Grey this is felt hardest. Everything we buy, everything we grow and everything we make travels further. Every one of those kilometres has a cost, and it is paid by the families, the farmers and the small businesses.
Today, government debt hit $1 trillion for the first time. Australians are paying $27 billion a year on government interest. That's more than $50,000 every single minute.
That interest bill is money that cannot go to a country hospital, a regional road or a doctor for a town that desperately needs one. Every dollar borrowed today is a bill handed to the next generation. The point to remember is that this government has received $400 billion in revenue windfalls, the largest in our history, and it's still managed to deliver $1 trillion in a budget black hole.
Government spending is now at the highest levels in four decades, outside the pandemic. Labor spends, and Australians pay. A year after Labor promised to fix productivity at their three-day talkathon roundtable, their productivity has gone backwards and the Reserve Bank is once again downgrading its forecasts.
On the Reserve Bank's current numbers, it will take eight years to get back to where we were in 2022. You do not lift productivity with a summit. You lift it by backing businesses to invest and employ.
The coalition has a plan to lower taxes by axing Labor's toxic taxes and delivering our tax-back guarantee, a plan for cheaper power by scrapping net zero and making this country an energy superpower, a plan for less migration and more homes by capping migration to the houses we actually build and plan for a future generations fund to pay down the debt and build the roads, ports, water infrastructure and energy assets the regions have waited on for years.
This is also about protecting our way of life. It's about getting our regions growing again. It's about ensuring our farms are passed on to the next generation.
It's about ensuring our local footy and netball clubs can still field a side. The people I represent are not asking for much. They want to run a small business, fill the ute, keep the lights on and put a little bit away at the end of the month.
They're asking for a government that can manage money. This government cannot. Before I conclude, let me say this.
There is one word to describe the fellow who promised to take $275 off your power bill. It rhymes with 'tyre'. It sounds like 'briar'.
It resembles the word 'flyer'. But I will not say it. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Claydon ): I also saw the back of that piece of paper, which I consider to be a prop, and I do not ever want to see it back in here again.