Albanese Government

Imagine looking into the eyes of the Australian people who elected you as their nation’s leader and repeatedly being untruthful—deliberately telling untruths? That is exactly what Anthony Albanese and this Labor government continue to do to Australians. They have built a government based on lies and broken promises, with a weak leadership team at the helm. Remember the $275 lower electricity price promise? What about cheaper mortgages? That also was a promise before the election. Do we remember the phrase, ‘Life will be cheaper under me,’ on the front page of the newspaper? The now Prime Minister continued to spout that during the last election campaign. And it turns out that we were all right all along, because it won’t be easy under Albanese—and it hasn’t been easy.

Adding to the list of broken promises is of course his monumental tax-cut backflip, which unfolded earlier this month. And now Australians are set to foot the bill for Labor’s broken stage 3 tax cuts promise. After spending $450 million dollars—that’s almost half a billion dollars—on a failed referendum and adding $209 billion in extra spending across the economy, the government will now spend $40 million on an advertising campaign to sell their tax cuts. At the same time, they’re giving just $14 million to struggling food banks. That tells you what they’re doing and what their priorities are under the Albanese Labor government. That’s a whopping $55,000 of taxpayer money per day on an advertising campaign to sell their tax cuts. It’s an eye-watering amount of money to spend on a public information campaign for a single measure—in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis—and I think that Australians will make up their own minds on that.

They’ll decide—in fact, they’ll decide this weekend in the electorate of Dunkley—whether they want to send the Prime Minister a message on what his priorities are at the moment and what they’ve been since Labor came to power. They know they can’t buy integrity for $15 a week. The government know that, so they’re looking to spend $40 million trying to convince people of their lie instead. But no amount of money is going to justify that calculated lie, and Australians are feeling poorer under this Labor government. Why are they feeling poorer? Because they are poorer! Australians are poorer after 18 months under this government. Personal income tax has risen by a record 27 per cent and living standards have collapsed by 8.6 per cent. That’s a big difference. Labor’s broken promises are piling up and taking more money out of the pockets of hardworking Australians. We know that: we speak to family and friends who are struggling. Parts of my community are struggling. The stats are clear: Australians are set to pay an extra $28 billion more in taxes over the next 10 years because of this decision to change the rollout of the stage 3 tax cuts, mainly through bracket creep.

Does a promise mean anything to this government? Anthony Albanese said, ‘My word is my bond,’ but it’s blatantly clear that his word means nothing—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms Vamvakinou): I’ll just interrupt and remind the member for Moncrieff to refer to members by their correct titles.

Ms BELL: Thank you for that very gentle reminder, Deputy Speaker! The Prime Minister said, ‘My word is my bond,’ but it’s blatantly clear in the wake of these broken promises that his word means nothing. The string of broken promises from this Prime Minister is eclipsed only by the outright assault on the values that Australians hold so dear.

My electorate is in the heart of the Gold Coast. We certainly consider it to be the home, the natural home, of the entrepreneurial spirit, with more than 70,000 registered businesses across the Gold Coast and 32,000 in my electorate alone. But our aspiration and hard work is under attack through the wealth redistribution strategy coming from the most socialist government since Whitlam. So beware Australians, beware Gold Coasters, for what is next. Negative gearing and capital gains tax on the family home could be up for grabs, who knows? Remember ‘my word is my bond’? That is what we heard but we have seen those words being changed, haven’t we? We have seen ‘my word is my bond’ up in lights. We have seen ‘life will be easier’, ‘life will be cheaper’ up in lights. But that is not the reality today.

Treasury secretary, Dr Kennedy, refused to rule out work being done within Treasury on further tax changes that would amount to more broken promises. Dr Kennedy suggested he was unable to pick the specifics of what they’re working on in the tax system, stating ‘particularly if they should be near a cabinet process or they are part of a deliberative process’. So there you have it: in Labor’s first 18 months, the mountain of broken promises piling up is pushing the struggling families across our nation further into crisis with the cost of living. I have even heard about people going to the supermarket and buying their groceries on their credit card. That is a terrible position to be if you are running a family. It is clear that when Labor run out of money, they come after yours and they certainly come after ours. They have continued to lie and mislead the Australian public and, given their track record, will continue to do so. The Albanese government continue to spiral out of control when it comes to their broken promises and their weak leadership. The weak leadership runs deep within this government.

In what can only be described as an embarrassing display, the immigration minister continues to duck and weave from scrutiny over the mishandling of his responsibilities. But in true Labor fashion, those opposite continue to point fingers and play the blame game by attacking and undermining the previous government for Labor’s lies and broken promises. Labor are claiming they’re the ones cleaning up the coalition’s mess, but these criminal detainees, 37 of whom are sex offenders, were released under Labor’s watch. Some 149 hardened criminals have been released into our communities across the country under Labor’s watch. Clearly, they weren’t interested in watching too closely, because while Minister Giles’s department was briefing his office on legal options in advance of the NZYQ case he was busy advocating at Voice rallies in Canberra, where these briefings took place. This is a shocking failure on community safety and national security from this government.
The fact the Prime Minister was apparently not even aware of the first illegal boat arrival when he was asked at a press conference shows this government has completely lost control and interest in Australia’s border security. The Prime Minister’s weak leadership on national security is clearly incentivising the people smugglers to reopen their operations. The results of the coalition’s tough border policy, Operation Sovereign Borders, speak for themselves. I note the former home affairs minister is here in the Federation Chamber and I congratulate her on the work that she did in that portfolio to keep our borders safe. I reflect on the fact that broke the back of the people people-smuggling trade that brought chaos to our borders under Labor’s watch, under the Gillard and Rudd governments.

It is clear this government is spiralling out of control. They cannot even keep our community safe. We do not know where those hardened criminals are. We don’t know where the sex offenders are or where those murderers are that this government has let out into our communities across our nation. Australians should be very concerned about this. Australia should also be concerned about the boat arrivals that are now coming to our shores. Think back before Tony Abbott became the Prime Minister and stopped the boats. Operation Sovereign Borders, under the former Prime Minister Scott Morrison as immigration minister, was where we had good results. But now people smugglers on the other side of the world are getting the message that they can come here to our country. They’re getting that message because there have been some illegal boat arrivals. That’s a terrible message to send across the world to those awful people smugglers, who are always watching.

It should come as no surprise that those illegal arrivals came after Labor ripped $600 million from border security in their most recent budget, a decision which, according to the Australian Border Force Commissioner, would leave his frontline forces ‘stretched’. As a result, the Department of Home Affairs admits maritime surveillance has decreased due to workforce and asset shortages, and that directly resulted in a return to the human tragedy we saw during the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years, a dark time when there were 50,000 illegal boat arrivals on 820 boats and, tragically, there were at least 1,200 deaths at sea. The Prime Minister was central to that period in government. As Prime Minister, he can’t even look the Australian people in the eye and say that Operation Sovereign Borders is operating as it did under the coalition government. Labor will do anything to try and pull the wool over the eyes of Australians, but their complaining does not mask their policy failures. Can we trust this Prime Minister when all he and his ministers have done is lie, deceive the public and underdeliver on national security?