E&OE.
[acknowledgements omitted]
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your time today.
This morning, I was in Camberwell with our candidate for Kooyong, Amelia Hamer.
Amelia is an outstanding candidate who is doing the hard yards of winning that seat back for our party.
This is my 36th trip to Victoria since becoming the Leader of the Federal Opposition.
On each trip, I’ve had the pleasure to meet many enterprising Victorians – everyday mums and dads, workers, small business owners, and manufacturers.
Not just here in metropolitan Melbourne.
But in outer suburbs like Lilydale, Bayswater and Frankston.
And further afield in places like Shepparton and Torquay.
Victorians haven’t lost their enterprise or their passion.
But their spirits have taken some blows in recent years.
First from the pandemic.
And now from the national cost-of-living crisis.
Of course, all leaders and governments must contend with unforeseen events and setbacks.
But when they do, it’s their responsibility to make a bad situation better – not worse.
Daniel Andrews’ excessive lockdowns amplified the financial and emotional toll of the pandemic on Victorians – especially here in Melbourne.
Paul – thank you for being a rare voice of reason in that extremely difficult time for Victoria and standing up for its industries and businesses.
Today, the Victorian and Federal Labor Governments are making decisions which are prolonging the cost-of-living crisis, keeping inflation stubborn, and preventing economic resurgence.
Ten years ago, Victoria’s debt was under $22 billion.
By 2028, debt will reach a staggering $188 billion – a more than 750 per cent increase.
That equates to $100,000 of debt for an average Victorian family of four.
Victoria’s debt is now more than that of New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania combined.
Interest repayments on this debt are more than $25 million a day.
Soaring debt has seen Labor scrap the Commonwealth Games and put Airport Rail on ice.
I strongly support rail – but the Victorian Government is misleading Victorians with the $200 billion Suburban Rail Loop.
They can’t afford it – in part because a bloated state public service means that wages will cost $40 billion in the 2027 financial year – more than double the cost when Labor came to power in 2014.
Cost blowouts for taxpayers have also occurred due to the influence of the militant and lawless CFMEU in the Labor Party.
As the Herald Sun has revealed, companies backed by the militant union are winning contracts to supply labour on Victoria’s infrastructure projects.
They’re being awarded contracts despite sometimes bidding more than double the cost of their competitors.
As my colleague, Michaelia Cash has said, a Coalition Government will move to restore the building industry watchdog – a strong cop on the beat for the construction industry.
We will also, as promised, double the penalties available to the courts to impose on criminals within the building industry.
Drowning in debt and addicted to spending, it’s no wonder the Allan Government has resorted to 55 new or increased taxes.
A huge strain on Victorian families and businesses are the Allan Government’s $21 billion in property taxes which constitute nearly half its tax take.
Victoria has become the hardest state in Australia to do business.
The federal Albanese Government is very much from the same mould as their Victorian counterparts.
Australians suffered the biggest increase in average tax rates of any citizens in the developed world last year.
Federal Labor has put in place new taxes on franking credits and superannuation.
It’s still equivocating about a capital gains tax on the family home and increases to the fringe benefits tax.
And it hasn’t ruled out abolishing negative gearing for new housing investors, or even potentially, all housing investors.
Over three federal Budgets, the Albanese Government has added to homegrown inflation by lifting spending by a startling $315 billion – or $30,000 per Australian household.
The Government is now adding $4 in spending for every extra $1 it raises.
The national accounts figures this week paint a bleak and worrying picture.
In the March quarter, GDP grew by 0.1 per cent.
That makes GDP growth through the year 1.1 per cent.
Outside the pandemic, that’s the weakest growth since 1991.
Our country is in a per capita recession and has been for five quarters.
Labor does not have a pathway to prosperity or to create more opportunities for Australians.
For the last ten years in Victoria – and the last two years nationally – a ‘Big Government’ experiment has been run under Labor.
Believing that bigger government means better government, Labor has resorted to pulling those levers which increase government control.
The levers of more spending, more regulation, and more taxation.
And I simply ask this question:
Are Victorians and Australians better off under these Big Labor governments?
Of course they’re not.
We have watched this movie before – under Whitam in the 70s and Kirner in the 90s.
The solution to our economic woes lies not in government which wants to increase its power over Australians, but in government which wants to empower Australians.
We must reject ‘Big government’.
We must restore effective and economically responsible government.
And we must revive government which puts its faith in the ingenuity and innovation of our citizens.
Under a Coalition Government I lead federally, we will implement a back-to-basics economic agenda to get our country Back on Track.
I know that a state Coalition Government under John Pesutto is committed to doing the same for Victoria.
We will rein-in wasteful spending to take the pressure off inflation.
In the latest Federal Budget, Labor confirmed an additional 36,000 public servants in Canberra at a cost of $6 billion a year – all to please the unions.
We will eliminate the regulatory roadblocks and red tape to re-energise the economy and allow businesses the freedom to flourish again.
And we will deliver lower, simpler, and fairer taxes for all to support cash-flow and help Australians get ahead.
As a first step, in my Budget Reply speech, I announced the Coalition’s pledge to extend the value of assets eligible for the instant asset write-off to $30,000 and make this arrangement ongoing.
We need to give businesses a hand-up – and this is one way to do it and generate the economic activity our country needs.
Labor’s industrial relations changes will stifle job creation, limit flexibility and increase costs.
We believe in giving businesses and workers the freedom to make their own choices.
That’s why we will reverse Labor’s changes to the definition of casual employment because it reduces flexibility for workers and employers.
One of the most important areas we must urgently address to fix our economy is in the area of energy policy.
Energy is the economy.
Under the Andrews-Allan Governments, the average price of electricity and gas has gone up by 27 and 93 per cent respectively.
Nationally, under the Albanese Government’s term, electricity and gas prices have gone up by 20 and 25 per cent respectively.
Wedded to their ‘renewables only’ policy, the Albanese Government will switch off 90 per cent of our nation’s 24/7 baseload power over the next ten years.
A more unreliable grid and skyrocketing energy prices are having an inflationary impact across the economy.
And we are seeing what impact this is having.
Over 120 workers will be made redundant at heating and cooling manufacturer, Seeley, when it closes its plant on the Victoria-NSW border and consolidates its operations in another state.
In every aspect of the production and supply of goods and services across our economy, higher energy costs are driving up inflation and the cost-of-doing business.
It’s no wonder that over the last two years, there’s been a three-fold increase in the number of manufacturers nationally who have closed their doors.
Over the same period in Victoria, some 5,000 businesses went bust – with insolvencies 25 per cent higher this financial year than last.
A priority for a Coalition Government I lead is achieving our nation’s three energy goals:
Cheaper power. Consistent power. Cleaner power.
In the more immediate term, that means ramping-up domestic gas production to get power prices down and to restore stability to our grid.
To get gas going again and to where it’s needed, a Coalition Government will slash project approval timeframes in half.
And we will release offshore acreage annually for exploration and development in Western Australia and the Northern Territory – which will have flow-on benefits to the East Coast.
Gas is also essential to transition our economy to new energy systems.
But the Victorian Government has already banned gas from new homes.
Businesses will be next in their crosshairs.
AEMO forecasts a reduction in Victoria’s gas supply over the next four years by 48 per cent. The Federal Government is no better.
Two days after releasing its Future Gas Strategy, the Prime Minister said that ‘not a single government dollar’ would be invested in gas under his Future Made in Australia plan.
Only a Coalition Government can be trusted to make mature and rational decisions on the energy mix.
If the policy is driven by emotion and false hope, then we will see catastrophic energy failures in this country.
If our national energy goals are to achieve cheaper, consistent, and cleaner power, then Australia must embrace zero-emission, next generation nuclear technologies as part of our energy mix.
Wherever in the world nuclear power is part of an energy mix, it helps to lower the cost of electricity.
Nineteen of the top 20 economies use nuclear power as part of their energy mix, or are on the pathway to putting it in their mix.
Australia is the only country in the top 20 economies which hasn’t embraced nuclear power or is taking steps to do so.
In Ontario, Canada, nuclear constitutes more than 50 per cent of its energy mix and its residents pay as little as a quarter of the cost of what some Australians pay for electricity.
Holding the largest deposits of uranium on the planet, we have an opportunity to become energy self-reliant while also growing our uranium exports.
Under Labor, Australians are currently paying some of the most expensive electricity prices in the world.
The Government’s ‘renewables only’ approach will cost $1.3 trillion to re-wire our nation.
If you think your energy bill is high now, wait until it starts to reflect these costs.
Another advantage of nuclear power is that we can maximise the highest yield of energy per square metre of environmental impact.
We do that by putting new nuclear technologies on decommissioned or retiring coal-fired power plants and use the existing grid.
Under Labor’s plan, 28,000 kilometres of new transmission poles and wires will criss-cross agricultural land and national parks – including here in Victoria.
Ladies and gentlemen:
My team and my parliamentary colleagues here in Victoria are working on a positive vision for a better Australia.
And I want Victoria to be a state where energy is affordable and reliable.
A state where manufacturing is a powerhouse again – not penalised for being a big energy user and forced to close.
A state where businesses, large and small, are opening, growing, thriving and creating more jobs for Victorians – not closing because their costs outstrip their profits or moving interstate.
A state where infrastructure is built without blowouts and delays, and where our streets are not choked with congestion.
A state where migration is well-managed to enable young people the chance of achieving home ownership.
A state where young people can afford to buy a home and start a family.
I want a Victoria that doesn’t punish people for trying to get ahead.
A Victoria which doesn’t spend a billion dollars not to build a road.
A Victoria that doesn’t have to cancel events like the Commonwealth Games.
And a Victoria which is once again the jewel in the crown of the national economy – a place renowned for its national output and innovation.
We can get there.
But we need better governments in Victoria and Canberra to make this happen.
I want to say thank you very much for your presence here today.
The message that it sends to us, and I want to reciprocate by saying we are genuinely keen to continue the discussion with many of you that we’ve already started, but for others to be involved in that discussion as well so that we can find the best way forward for Victoria.
If we do that, that is in our national interest, to which we are truly committed.
Thank you very much.
[ends]