MOTIONS

Mr VENNING (Grey) (18:19): In support of the previous member, Australians do deserve honesty, and that is not what they are getting from this government. So I rise to speak in support of this motion. This is a government that has never had more of your money and has never had less to show for it.

Ask the Australian people whether they feel like they are earning more and keeping more of what they earn. Despite Treasurer Dr Jim's spin, most will tell you they are not. This is not an accident; it is the direct result of the Albanese Labor government's fiscal failure.

A pay rise that only keeps up with inflation leaves you no better off. The tax office does not care. Bracket creep pushes more of your pay into the higher tax bracket, meaning you pay more tax on your pay rise.

And that was never really a pay rise. You are not earning more. You are just being taxed more.

Under the Albanese Labor government, real wages are going backwards while your tax bill is going up. This is an inflation tax. The higher inflation goes the more the government collects.

This government has no reason to bring inflation down, because inflation pays its bills. The coalition will end this. Our tax back guarantee will index income tax thresholds to inflation.

From 2028-29, 85 per cent of taxpayers will be fully protected. From 2031-32, every taxpayer will be. That means 250 bucks back in the first year, growing to more than $1,000 a year by the fourth.

This is simple, honest tax reform. Under our plan, if a future government want to raise taxes, they'll have to be fair dinkum and front up to the Australian people and find savings. Small businesses are carrying the burden of the Albanese Labor government's incompetence.

Last year, 14,500 businesses went under, the worst for insolvencies since records began. In Grey, small business is not just a sector; it's the town. It's the mechanic at Kimba, the roadhouse at Glendambo or the cafe on the main street in Port Pirie.

When a business closes its doors under Labor, another one does not open in its place. Month after month, the Treasurer gaslights Australians, telling them we have record company creation. Peek behind the headline figure and you will see company registrations are running well ahead of GST registrations.

That gap does not mean shopfronts are opening. It means existing businesses and trusts are restructuring. That is what the Treasurer calls a boom.

Unbelievable. If the Treasurer saw the world in three dimensions, he would know what his record really is—record red tape, record accounting fees and record paperwork. Under a coalition government, we will get small businesses going again, we will consult on a new small-business act, we will make a $50,000 instant asset write-off permanent for all small businesses and we will scrap all of Labor's toxic taxes.

All of this comes back to one question: what is the Albanese Labor government doing with the money? They bought a farm. The very same Treasurer who believes chocolate milk comes from brown cows bought a farm with your money.

Rushy Lagoon, Tasmania's largest farm, with 22,000 hectares of beef, dairy and cropping country, was sold to a UK investment fund to plant pine trees for carbon credits. The Commonwealth, using your taxes, chipped in $69 million, plus another $8.8 million for the trees. Australian farmers were outbid with their own taxes.

Twenty-two thousand hectares that grew beef and milk will now grow certificates. You cannot eat a carbon credit. The coalition will end Labor's carbon land grab and put our farmers first.

I commend this motion to the House.