You can’t spend way out of trouble

Angie Bell MP
Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education
Shadow Minister for Youth
Federal Member for Moncrieff

OP ED
GOLD COAST BULLETIN
You can’t spend way out of trouble

13 May 2023

Labor has a trick of delivering their bad news to you ahead of time as a prophecy of what lies ahead, then blaming anything else including the former government for their terrible outcomes.

This Budget delivers nothing but bad news for Australian families.

High inflation is the enemy of the economy and under this Labor Government, inflation will continue to increase, and there is no plan to address it. That means prices will continue to rise, and your dollar will buy less.

An eight per cent increase at the checkout and further increases to electricity and gas bills means your family will be $25,000 worse off next financial year. Now that’s a serious hit to any household.

Inflation is eating into Australians’ pay packets and causing the price of essential household goods and services to skyrocket.

Inflation comes from Canberra. It is not coming from Vladimir Putin. It is not coming from the war in Ukraine.

We needed a Budget that reduced inflation and reined in spending to combat the cost-of-living crisis facing all Australians.

But that isn’t what we got.

Instead, Labor delivered a Budget that makes life harder for Australian families, small businesses, self-funded retirees, and mortgage holders.

A Budget that cuts infrastructure spending, and fails to address congestion, the housing and rental crisis, and the liveability and amenity of our towns and suburbs.

Labor will continue to add to the cost of your mortgage, your rent, your groceries and just about everything else Australians are spending their hard-earned money on.

And they’ve left Gold Coasters behind.

Jim Chalmers’ Budget spending spree insults the entrepreneurial spirit and is an attack on aspiration that lies at the heart of the Gold Coast community.

Small businesses are the backbone of this country, and yet this Budget delivers nothing for the 72,000 small and family businesses across the Gold Coast.

The Instant Asset Write Off (IAW), which has helped business to grow across the country, and was left uncapped during the COVID-19 pandemic, has been slashed from $150,000 to $20,000.

It’s an absolute disgrace, and another shameless attack on small businesses by this Labor Government.

After less than a year of Labor in office, government spending will increase by $185 billion. Labor cannot spend its way out of its cost-of-living crisis.

The cost of everything is going up and families are having to choose between paying their bills and putting food on the table.

Gold Coast food charities such as SOP at Mermaid and St John’s Crisis at Surfers are being inundated by those who need assistance to make ends meet.

And yet all we continue to see from this Labor Government are empty commitments and broken promises. Electricity prices continue to rise, mortgages are not cheaper, inflation is rising and real wages have not increased.

They also promised no new taxes and yet we’ve seen their plans for superannuation, which will disproportionately affect younger Australians, and two new taxes on regional Australia that will further increase inflation and prices.

Before the election, the Prime Minister promised that no one would be left behind, yet this Budget leaves the majority of Australians behind.

It’s clear, this Albanese Labor Government can’t be trusted to keep its promises.

The Coalition wants Australians to do well, but at the moment we are being held back by a government with no economic plan for the future.
Gold Coasters deserve better.

With the government spending all their time in the days since handing down the Budget defending the risk to inflation, there’s one thing I know for sure – Gold Coasters always pay more under a Labor Government.

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