Thank you.
Thank you to the sponsor, and to all my colleagues in the room who are prepared to fight for a better Australia.
Last Tuesday night Australia was hit with an economic earthquake, and its epicenter was Canberra.
There were warnings in the weeks prior, but many Australians didn't believe the tremors would reverberate out to them; and following Tuesday they have been hit by aftershocks that have struck at their confidence.
The government would have you believe this Budget was all necessary for intergenerational fairness, and that the yearning for young Australians to get ahead is denied by their grandparents.
The reason the aftershocks are still felt is because this Budget goes beyond bank accounts and targets the pride so many Australians have in their work, and the spirit of the nation itself.
This Budget pulled away the one thing young Australians need more than ever - to get their first foothold on the ladder of opportunity so they can work in the belief of a better tomorrow.
No Budget has ever targeted every generation of Australians, from those who are renting for the first time out of home, through to those in the last home of aged care.
It has presented us with a choice. Are we still the land of the 'fair go' where Australians have a future built on aspiration, cooperation and shared nationhood, or will we accept a future of managed decline, dependence and division. Do we want to grow together or grow apart; turn to each other, or against each other.
Are we a nation of self-starters, or will we accept an economy and society built on seeking permission.
The spirit of self-starters
Since Tuesday my phone, email and social media feeds have been in meltdown.
Messages have started with "both my parents died before I turned 20 years old, they left me nothing to give me a start" and now this Budget "killed the aspirations of my children and the children of many, many parents similar to me".
Others, that "for the past two years I have operated without taking a wage just to keep the doors open … [and] the new tax changes will make this impossible".
But the most common theme is Australians feeling their government has turned their back on them, and asking whether they should turn their back on Australia for another country.
But the stories that have stood out most are those of lost hope.
One that stood out was Sienna.
At the age of 12, Sienna set up Tweeny Skin in her bedroom.
In her own words it was "built after school, [she] packed orders on weekends … [and] reinvested basically every dollar back into the business".
She is now 17 and her business is growing.
I love it.
Plucky. Determined. Ambitious. Carving her own path.
A young Australian who believes that with optimism, imagination, hard work and enthusiasm, she can shape the future.
It is a stab at commerce, but it is a mindset about creating our own destiny.
Yet while Sienna finishes her HSC, she has learned she has a shareholder who wants to take half the reward of her effort.
There are hundreds of thousands of Siennas in our country.
Men and women who believe that we are - in the words of Henley - the master of my fate, and the captain of my soul.
They aren't interested in politics.
Or I should say, they haven't been.
Because in the last week they have roared with thousands of posts critiquing what they are calling their new unwelcome business partner.
A truly organic moment.
And I'm sure you've read their stories: tanning shops and beauticians, tradie workwear businesses, flooring specialists, caterers, welding fabricators, canvas swag makers, chiropractic clinics, plumbers, community gyms, seafood markets and irrigation bore repairers.
A kaleidoscope of hundreds of thousands of Australians who normally punch the sky, but now feel their government is punching them.
They don't want thanks, nor do they want support. They only desire that their hard work pays off.
One salon operator wrote:
"you build it from nothing. You work late nights, early mornings, survive interest rates, pay wages, rent, stock, super, GST, tax, answer client messages at 11pm, squeeze in emergencies, miss weekends… and somehow your silent investor [the Prime Minister] still clocks in for 47% without ever stepping foot behind the chair."
The innovators, disruptors, risk takers and builders of this country have worked this Prime Minister out: he's the guy in that group assignment that does none of the work, but still takes the grade.
Budget reflections
Budgets matter.
Budgets matter because they are more than an economic or financial statement. They are a map of a government's priorities and their character.
A lot of people are talking about this Budget as broken trust, but it is an abuse of trust by the Prime Minister.
Where we should have got unity, we had the Prime Minister stoking fights around the kitchen tables of the nation pitting children against their parents, grandchildren against their grandparents.
And where we should have got a path for growth, we got the politics of redistribution and resentment.
And the Teals MPs cheering from the sidelines for the Prime Minister's betrayal, confirming the ruse of their commitment to integrity.
It is a Budget so absent of ambition for our nation that its failure is shown up by its own numbers.
Public spending will outstrip private sector growth.
Private investment is barely moving, and new mining investment growth is projected to fall to zero in two financial year's time.
Labor's own Budget forecasts show declines with GDP growth at 1.75 per cent, and the RBA projecting only 1.4 per cent.
Where we should have got prudence, we got $1.25 trillion in debt by the end of the decade and $40 billion a year, or $80,000 a minute in interest.
That's equivalent to 12 additional credit cards being issued per Australian behind their back.
For small businesses the situation is particularly dire. They are already living with record insolvencies: 8 close every business hour.
And it is reflected in consumer and small business confidence data which was weak before Iran and has now collapsed in NAB, ANZ and Westpac surveys.
The only way the government can continue to claim growth is by overshooting their migration target.
In this Budget the government has revealed it is a freeloader off the hard work of Australians, and that they don't understand the engine of the economy - and the people who power it every day.
We now have countless examples flooding through our 'Not the tax we voted for' website at www.notthetax.com.au , that demonstrate that the government simply does not understand how Australia's economy works.
That the problem of the nexus between tax rates didn't mean capital gains tax was too low, it is that income tax is too high.
That negative gearing is a legalistic way of not taxing losses, and when you do rents go up - just like when Keating scrapped it.
And with young Australians investing in shares, ETFs and crypto for their first home deposit they're on the capital gains tax hit list too.
As are the rent-vestors who hope to buy property where they can, while they rent where they choose.
And they admit in their own Budget these taxes will lead to 35,000 fewer homes being built pushing home ownership further away for some.
They also don't understand the role that trusts play to protect small business and family businesses and protect child support payments and even protect incomes for victims of domestic violence.
The government could have gone after the $15 billion rorted by the CFMEU-Labor cartel, but they targeted the self-employed instead.
The government could have targeted those who are fleecing over $6 billion in tobacco tax, but they hit small businesses instead.
This is a government that protects those who hurt Australians, and hurts those who work hard.
And we know the Treasurer is the inflation arsonist that cosplays as the fire fighter. He says he has the habit under control, but he keeps reaching for the fiscal Jerry can, pouring more pour debt petrol on the inflation fire.
Australians are now living the consequences of the government's active inflation agenda three times over: declining living standards, with higher taxes and interest rates.
Because of Labor's rampant inflation, Australians' real wages have fallen by 3 per cent since the start of the Albanese government - and are still falling.
That's why, over their time, the Albanese government is the highest-taxing government in Australian history. And why personal income taxes, in particular, are at their highest level as a share of the economy ever.
And we know that taxes on all Australians are going to rise - the Prime Minister has said he plans to gather an additional $200 billion in income tax alone.
And for all the talk of "tax cuts", the income tax cuts they took to the last election were wiped by inflation-fuelled by bracket creep in six months, as this round will be by Christmas.
And where inflation goes, interest rates follow. With 15 rate rises under Labor, an average couple with an average mortgage has lost $32,000 a year in real purchasing power.
The reason Australians feel they are going backward is because they are.
And the Treasurer has lost control of the economy, which is why fiscal policy is going in one direction, and the Reserve Bank is headed in the other. The Treasurer is now playing a game of interest rate 'chicken' with the Reserve Bank Governor and daring her to hike rates again.
Labor can't fix this mess
Inflation is not a bug, it is a design feature of the economy Labor built: a deliberate cycle to fuel the inflation, tax the inflation, and spend the inflation. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Shortly after becoming Federal Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, penned an essay arguing "our mission is to redefine and reform the economy and institutions in ways that make our communities more resilient".
4 years on we now know who they govern for, and it is themselves and their fellow travellers of organised labour, lawyers, super funds and big business interests.
In doing so Labor expands their control and the growth of institutions that sit between Australians and their own aspirations.
For the community this might be a bad faith Budget, but it is a good faith Budget for those in Labor's eco-system.
Since 2022 they reversed the legacy of the 1980s on industrial relations, and whose growth sectors are public sector jobs, class action law suits, and regulatory compliance.
And in too many areas, including the NDIS, they have opened the gates to fraud, corruption and organised crime - so that the taxes of honest Australians have been harvested by dishonest interests.
And when a government corrodes the private economy it undermines the pathway to opportunity, and our spiritual confidence in ourselves.
Growth outstripped by inflation can only lead to resentment, while there will be cynics that seek lead others into an orange paddock of despair.
Labor cannot fix this mess because the problems flow from their economic model to recreate the Australian economy to feed the interests aligned to them, not Australians.
The five key drivers of productivity show it clearly.
On tax, Labor have revealed that they are putting political survival today ahead of the investment needed to build a more hopeful tomorrow.
On skills, they'd rather Australians go through a unionised system, than open pathways for people to learn on the job and meet market demand.
On technology, they're luddites who resist integration if it risks displacing their Party loyalists, even if the competitiveness of the Australian economy is put at jeopardy.
On energy, they would rather give tax breaks to foreign investors in intermittent energy sources to save political face, rather than build the energy systems Australia needs to restore its resilience and competitiveness.
On regulation, they might hold roundtables, but they refuse to confront that the biggest growth in productivity-killing regulation is the public sector, so that red tape reduction would mean fewer bureaucrats.
Every regulation written by someone on a salary, lands on someone trying to make payroll.
And their only answer to Australia's housing crisis is Liberal policy they previously rejected, and to make Australia a permanent nation of renters.
And while Mums and Dads are losing, international investors and super funds keep preferential arrangements for corporate rentals.
We fundamentally reject Labor's vision in favour of Australians renting for life.
Home ownership is not just about bricks and mortar, but is the spiritual centre for families, the north star of our aspiration, and the economic security for tomorrow - and central to the democratic ownership of our very Commonwealth.
Labor's economic model digs us into a hole, and they are intent on continuing to dig.
And the real risk is they're setting Australia's economy up for failure for the future.
Recent reports from the e61 Institute found Australia has experienced a long-term decline of the self-employed and small business. Yet they are also the ones that disproportionately hire employees to their size, and are most innovative and productive.
Concurrently the Australian Institute of Company Directors has reported regulatory compliance is the fastest growing sector of the economy and is sapping dynamism.
That matters because Anthropic analysis into labour market disruption in an AI-driven economy predicts that the jobs most exposed to displacement are those in public and corporate bureaucracies.
Labor is creating a sit-down economy that is at risk of technological failure, rather than the stand-up economy that channels people's potential.
Rebuilding a Liberal economy
As former economic adviser to the Albanese government, Alexander Sanchez, has outlined "by almost any meaningful measure, the open economy that replaced the old Australian settlement is now being quietly, steadily dismantled - not by ideological flourish, but by stealth. A frog slowly being boiled".
This future is not inevitable. But we must choose a different path.
A Liberal vision for Australia's economy is one where the policy levers of the nation work in favour of Australian's energy and aspiration.
And that starts with a liberal approach to intergenerational fairness. Peter Costello was fond of saying the best youth policy was leaving young Australians with no Commonwealth debt.
It is because it unshackles them from the decisions of the past. It also means the horizon of their opportunity is open. Intergenerational fairness starts with young Australians being able to build wealth to get ahead.
Our message to those targeted by this Budget is simple: The self-starters are what built this country, and we are going to back you to be its future.
You work. You risk. You should get ahead.
And that is why the Coalition is being explicit: we will oppose the higher taxes the government has put forward, and we will repeal them if necessary.
Opposing Labor is not enough. That is why last Thursday night the Leader of the Opposition, Angus Taylor, committed to indexing income tax thresholds to address bracket creep and under our changes young Australians will keep what they earn, not have it taxed by stealth.
Nor do we want the next generation of Australians to be pushed into being a PAYG employee. We want an economy of choice, not conformity.
The disruption of AI raises the prospect of more Australians joining the ranks of the self-starting self-employed and small businesses, so we are going to increase the instant asset write-off to $50,000 a year and make it permanent.
Stand with Small
But that is not enough. Where the Albanese government has declared war on the self-starters and small businesses of this nation, we are going to fight for them.
In generations past young Australians got ahead by buying property.
Today, young Australians know that to get ahead you need to invest, and build a small business, side hustle, equity or startup.
For too long Australia's laws have been designed around the influence of those that can hire lobbyists to walk the Prime Minister's corridor.
Under Labor's model you pay to play, and when you do the rules are written for you while small business is shut out.
But the cost and compliance is the same for small businesses that are focused on getting ahead and lack human resources, legal, tax and industrial relations departments.
Over the past year I have been speaking with small businesses across the country, and particularly about how the rules of the economy increasingly feel rigged against them.
And I have reached a simple conclusion: we have an economy designed for the 20th Century, and I am no longer convinced tinkering at the margins will fix it.
We need new economic structures for the 21st Century.
So today I am formally launching the Stand with Small campaign to back the self-starters of the nation and to get their input about how our economy needs to be restructured to empower them.
The Coalition government will consult on a Small Business Act, and we are proposing at least four pillars:
- A single definition: That all Commonwealth law will refer to one definition for a small business.
- A right to be paid: Cash flow is king, and we will have a legal maximum payment term to small business from government and big business.
- A right to be heard: As appropriate, each new law should require a small business regulatory impact statement, and there should be pathways for feedback so small business voices can be heard - from the RBA, ASIC, the ATO and Fair Work.
- A right to bid: New and expanded minimum requirements for government procurement that must come from small business.
We have put forward a framework. We want the self-starters of the nation to tell us what the details should be, and what should also be included.
To have your say go to www.standwithsmall.org .
Over the remainder of this year we will be holding consultations all around the nation. So it does not matter whether you are in Albany, Adelaide, Ascot Vale or Aspley, if you are a self-starter the rules will back your success.
We will replace Labor's pessimism with Liberal optimism. A nation where the taxpayers are respected, hard work pays off, and Australians feel in control of their lives.
Conclusion
Australians already know the Budget is a dud.
After this Budget earthquake, there will be a substantial clean up job.
It is not a time for despair.
We need the courage to fight for a new dawn.
A dawn that restores living standards, and protects our way of life.
A dawn that fills young Australians with hope, aspiration and confidence.
A dawn that puts trust in Australians and aligns their incentives to get ahead to the advancement of us all.
To build an economy that favours the Australian people rather than the Labor, big union and big super oligarchs.
Not a government that is empowered to kick the lemonade stands of the next generation.
And that's why we repeal Labor's new taxes that will otherwise kneecap the aspiration of young Australians to get ahead.
Because a country that punishes risk eventually runs out of courage.
Project Australia has always been about building a better present, to hand an inheritance to the next generation.
This is our time for choosing.
Continue on Labor's path of spending, inflation and debt to feed an economy built for them.
Or we can reclaim the soul of our country, its possibility and promise.
We can renew our fighting spirit - a nation of self-starters where we aspire, innovate, invest in our future, and look to the horizon with the confidence, living out the spirit of the Boxing Kangaroo.
