ADJOURNMENT

Mr FARLEY (Farrer) (19:30): My adjournment speech tonight is going to focus on debt—but debt is not the problem; neglect is. Debt needs no sunshine, no water, no power and no human hand. Leave it in the dark, untended, unloved, and it still grows—interest upon interest—silently and relentlessly.

Borrowing is not inherently bad; managed with discipline, it builds productive assets. It carries a nation through crisis. It bridges a shock that would otherwise break us.

Neglected, it becomes a burden inherited by people who never voted for it—people who had no seat at the table when the decisions were made. I ask this chamber: are we borrowing to make Australia stronger or are we leaving the next generation a larger bill? Commonwealth debt is forecast to reach $1.1 trillion during 2027-28 and is continuing to climb.

Interest costs rise with it. Every dollar consumed servicing yesterday's debt is a dollar unavailable to build a hospital, strengthen defence, construct a dam, improve a road or reduce the burden on taxpayers. Debt has an opportunity cost.

That cost is paid in things we did not build. On housing, Australia desperately needs more homes. Yet dwelling commencements fell 11.2 per cent in the March quarter, new housing loan commitments fell 5.4 per cent in the June quarter and dwelling approvals fell 3.6 per cent in the quarter—three quarters, three falls, one direction.

Canberra can announce housing targets until the cows come home. Announcements do not build houses; builders build houses, and builders need capital, trades, material, land and an approvals system that lets them get on with the job. On infrastructure, Snowy 2.0 was estimated at $6.1 billion in 2018.

That estimate was reset to $12 billion in 2023, and by March this year $11.1 billion had already been spent, with the project reported to be only 73 per cent complete. On the Inland Rail operational sections and constructions, the completed Melbourne-to-Brisbane vision still remains unfinished. Infrastructure cannot be measured by announcements, sod turnings or appropriations; it must be measured by three questions: 'What did you build?

When did you finish it? What did the taxpayer finally pay?' Moving to energy, the current regulated energy reference price has fallen, and that is welcome, but what is the whole-of-system cost of transforming Australia's electricity system—generation, transmission, storage, firming and network augmentation? What do we do while maintaining reliable, affordable, internationally competitive energy?

Without competitive energy, there is no competitive manufacturing sector, no strong industrial economy and no sovereign capacity. On productivity, productivity is not just an economist's abstraction; it's a foundation beneath sustainable wages, investment and living standards. Yet Australia's businesses confront regulation upon regulation, approval upon approval and compliance cost upon compliance cost.

Red tape consumes time. Green tape delays investment. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence, automation and advanced manufacturing reshape the global economy of our competitors, and our competitors build the future while we debate the process.

Governments do not create prosperity by decree. We mine. We farm.

We manufacture. We build. We transport.

We export. Government's responsibility is to create conditions, affordable capital, reliable energy, secure water, efficient infrastructure, skilled people, sensible regulation and confidence. Sovereign security is not created by policy documents; it's created by capacity—fuel, food, energy, water, transport, industry and people—the capacity to sustain ourselves when the world around us becomes difficult.

This is an intergenerational judgement. What will our children inherit, greater productivity capacity or greater liabilities? Infrastructure or invoices?

Industry or regulation? Food security or dependency? Debt itself is not immoral, but allowing debt to grow without building the productive capacity required to service it is a total abdication of responsibility.

Debt does not need our permission to grow; it only needs our neglect. Our responsibility is not merely to leave our children the debt accumulated in our time; it is to leave them a productive nation capable of paying for it.