MPI – Prime Minister

Can I say, it’s always a pleasure to go after the member for Riverina. He fires up, and everything that he said here in this chamber today is absolutely true, and I agree with every word. At the last election, the Prime Minister promised that life would be better and cheaper under a Labor government. This was a promise he made to the country. Ten months and many, many broken promises later, life has not been better and life has not been cheaper. In fact, life is harder and life is more expensive under an Albanese Labor government. The first promise he made, as the member for Riverina and many that came after him pointed out, was to reduce your electricity bill by $275. He said that 97 times. Gobsmacking! Ninety-seven times on national TV, in print and on radio, the Prime Minister said that your electricity bill would go down by $275. And we’ve never heard it again from this Prime Minister. It’s crickets from those opposite. It’s crickets in India. The Prime Minister will be there, and it will be crickets from the Prime Minister to Prime Minister Modi when they talk about that number—$275.

Labor promised they would keep mortgage costs and inflation low. But we continue to watch as interest rates go up, forcing families to struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Labor promised they wouldn’t touch franking credits. But they’ve been caught out adding two sneaky tax grabs on Australian shareholders. Tricky Tony’s done it. Labor promised cheaper child care. But centres are struggling to cover the increasing costs of rent, food and wages, and their fees are going up. In fact, child care costs in December went up a whopping 4.5 per cent. Out-of-pocket costs have already gone up 4.5 per cent under this government. That’s the largest quarterly increase outside the reversal of COVID measures since 2007. Instead of delivering support for Australian families who need it most, Labor continues to deliver nothing but broken promises. And, just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, today it did! While you struggle to pay your electricity bill or you take that second job to put food on the table, interest rates have gone up again. Labor have decided to break another promise and whack you again. Labor are trying to dip their greedy little hands into your superannuation—and it’s not theirs to put their hands into. It’s yours!

Then they lied to Australians about whether it would affect them or not. They were exposed in the other place by their own finance minister, who admitted that, actually, one in 10 Aussies will be affected by the changes—not the original 80,000 Australians that the Prime Minister said. It’s moving the goalposts and broken promises: they just cannot be trusted. This Labor government wants to take more of your hard-earned money during the cost-of-living crisis and use it for whatever they see fit. That’s the problem with Labor; it’s never your money. Even if you work hard for it, they see it as their money. And it won’t stop at superannuation; that will only be the beginning. They haven’t ruled out changes to negative gearing or changes to capital gains tax. Even if they’ve promised not to touch you, can you trust Labor? Can you trust ‘Tricky Tony’? As the shadow minister for youth, I ask—

Ms BELL: I withdraw, Madam Deputy Speaker—

Ms BELL: Certainly, thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. As the shadow minister for youth, I ask young people—who we know, historically, vote with Labor and their partners, the Greens: what about your super, when you retire? You’ll likely need about $3 million by the time you get to your retirement, and this Prime Minister and Treasurer are not indexing their assault on superannuation. That means the amount won’t go up with inflation.

Let’s think about how Labor are actually setting up the next generation of young people to pay for their grand social agenda. Think about that. To the youth of Australia: Labor is actually setting you up to pay for their future social agenda. As a young person, you cannot afford to trust this Labor government. Labor have said, ‘We won’t touch your house.’ But this government is basically as untrustworthy as the Roald Dahl character Harry Wormwood, Matilda’s dodgy second-hand-car-dealing father. At this point, can we trust anything that Labor tells us? We can’t. We can’t trust Labor to keep promises and we can’t trust Labor to run the economy. Labor said it had a plan; its budget shows there is no plan. Australian families deserve to know why Australian families always pay more under Labor.