Topics: 2025 Federal Budget

 

E&OE   

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, the budget handed down last night was a budget for the next five weeks, not for the next five years and beyond. This was a budget which featured an election bribe, a focus on the future and the job of Anthony Albanese and the job of Jim Chalmers, not the jobs of Australians, not the welfare and prosperity of all Australians, and that's what we needed to see last night. And sadly, we didn't see that before the budget, I said that the tests for this budget, the tests for this budget, were a pathway back to prosperity for Australians, a pathway back to the standard of living that Australians saw when we were last in government, but we've seen that collapse since then.

 

The typical family has seen an extra $50,000 in mortgage payments that they weren't expecting to pay, that they've had to find over the last two and a half years, since Labor has been in power. We need a pathway back to the standard of living Australians had when we were last in power, the collapse we've seen is the biggest in history.

 

We've never seen this before in Australia, and the worst of any of our peer countries across the world, it’s an absolute disaster for Australians. We said we needed to see a pathway back to hope and aspiration. Australians are losing hope wherever we go. We see that in young Australians wanting to buy a home, Australians who have a mortgage trying to pay it off, Australians who are starting a business, who are seeing 29,000 insolvencies, record levels of insolvencies. Australians who are trying to get ahead, who are finding they're having to pay more tax, personal income taxes, $3,500 dollars extra for the average Australian taxpayer and personal income taxes, since Labor came to power, there is no pathway back to hope.

 

There is no pathway back to prosperity under this Labor Government. And the third thing we said we needed to see was the budget integrity that was in place, had been in place since Peter Costello, but was thrown out the window by this Treasurer who has given up the ghost on budget integrity with deficits as far as the eye can see. Red ink as far as the eye can see. What we saw from the budget was none of that. No pathway back to the standard of living. We have no pathway back to hope, no re-establishment of budget integrity. Indeed, what we saw was an election night bribe. 70 cents a day in a year's time. That is the best this Treasurer can do to Australians who are suffering as never before. It's simply not good enough. This is a Treasurer who doesn't get economics, he gets spin, but not economics. He doesn't understand the hard economics of the household budget and the household bills absolutely smashed under Labor. People struggling to pay the grocery bills up 30% since Labor came to power. People struggling to pay their insurance bills, people struggling to pay the rent, struggling to pay the mortgage, people at food banks who would never have expected to have to go there. And this Treasurer focuses on an election night bribe. It's simply not good enough. Now, there is a better way, and on Thursday night, you'll see that in the Budget in Reply speech, you'll see a strong focus on managing the economy to restore hope, to restore our standard of living, to restore budget integrity, and most importantly, to make sure there is a pathway forward for Australians where they get their standard of living back to where it was when we were last in power and beyond and beyond, as quickly as possible.

 

That means delivering affordable, reliable energy for all Australians, both in the short term and the long term. That means fixing a housing supply which is simply broken. Labor promised 1.2 million houses. We'll be lucky to get to 800,000. We'll be lucky to get to 800,000. We'll see a focus on driving down electricity bills. We were promised $275. No sign of that in my electorate indeed. What they've seen is a miss of $1,300 a year. They're paying $1,300 a year more than Labor had promised. We'll see a balance between housing supply and immigration. We need to get that balance right again. It is completely out of whack.

 

What we saw in the budget last night was another increase in migration numbers for this year. It's up again. It's up again. 700,000 increase over five years. 1.8 million coming into Australia over five years. We're a great immigrant nation, but these are numbers that this country can't cope with. But alongside strong economic management, you'll see a strong focus on national security. We live in the most uncertain time, the most uncertain time since the Second World War and we need strength. We need leadership from the government when it comes to keeping Australians safe, and that will be a strong focus alongside strong economic management in the Budget in Reply on Thursday night. There is a better way to get back on track, but we can't afford another three years of what we've just seen. Happy to take questions.

 

JOURNALIST:

Labor is now saying you'll cut everything except people's taxes [inaudible]. 

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

You know, the thing about Labor is they have cut Australians’ standard of living like never before. It's collapsed. It's collapsed, but what we do see from them is they have completely failed to get immigration in balance with housing supply. Completely failed, completely failed. 1.8 million, 1.8 million. That’s 700,000 more than they said in their first budget and they've lost control. They've lost control of their budget. Red ink as far as the eye can see. $170 billion dollars worth of deficits over five years, $6,000 bucks on the credit card for every Australian. That's what we've seen. A growth of 41,000 in the Canberra-based public service. I mean, they've lost control of the budget, they've lost control of immigration, and they've lost control of the economy. We need to get back on track, get back to basics. We know how to fix these problems, but it's not the way the Labor Party tries to do it. They've got it all wrong.

 

JOURNALIST:

Apologies if you said this at the start. I missed it, but, um, have you revised up how many public servants you now want to sack?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, we've been very clear. We want the public service to get back to the size it was when we were last in government. I learned a long time ago in my work in the private sector, work that Jim Chalmers has never done. He did it for six months, but he hated it. I learned a long time ago that a bigger team is not necessarily a better team. What we need is the very best. We've got marvellous people, amazing people, tremendous people in our public service, we need to empower them. We need to take the bureaucracy away from them, to let them get on and do their jobs. And you know what? We don't need it to be bigger. It's only the Labor Party that thinks it needs to be bigger. It's got bigger. I mean, an increase of 40% in the health department and bulk billing rates have gone from 88% to 77% - it simply hasn't worked. But that's the Labor Party mindset because they haven't worked in the private sector. These people, they don't understand what it is to deliver an outcome, they haven't got a clue. Well, I've done that, and so have many of my colleagues. We can do better than this, and we have a great public service, and it can be greater.

 

JOURNALIST:

But the number of public servants.

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, I've been clear. I've said we want to get back to where we were last year.

 

JOURNALIST:

And how many is that?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, you know, it's pretty clear that they've increased it by 41,000 and that's the increase on where it was.

 

JOURNALIST:

The obvious next question is, the method of analysing that cohort of 41,000. You're an old school consultant. You worked for McKinsey. What are the sort of methodologies that this government really should have been using to determine whether 41,000 was the right number in terms of capacity? Is it benchmarking? Is it doing more studies about how to do better with less well?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

It's about getting outcomes. I mean, at the end of the day, when you run an organisation and yet you're struggling against competitors every single day, which is what most organisations in this country outside of the public sector have to do, small businesses who are working hard, you have to focus on outcomes for customers every single day of the week. Now, when you increase the department by 40% and your outcomes are going backwards, then there's clearly a problem. We can do better than this. We can do better than this. This has been a big part of my career to help to empower teams to do their very best and be their very best. But you can't do it if you're sitting under a deep bureaucracy where you can't get your job done. Making a team bigger doesn't necessarily make it better, and this is such an important lesson that people have learned through history, but the Labor Party, because we've got a group of people in the Labor Party who have never worked in that environment, when they haven't worked in competitive sectors, they simply don't understand the basics and how to get things done.

 

JOURNALIST:

Given my background in the accounting world, one of the key issues is measurement …

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Sure.

 

JOURNALIST:

Have you contemplated how you evaluate where the weaknesses are?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Yeah, I mean, what are we delivering to the Australian people. It is really so simple. It's a public service, and the quality of the public service is the key and I know we have incredible people working in Canberra and elsewhere around Australia who are public servants, who deeply, are deeply passionate about delivering to Australians and I tell you what, we're going to empower them to do exactly that.

 

JOURNALIST:

I'm just wondering if you could explain the logic of why you'll support rebates on energy bills, but not tax cuts for every taxpayer?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

You know this is 70 cents a day starting in a year's time and it's clearly an election-based bribe. Australians are suffering under the absolute mess that Labor has made of the energy system, the health system. We're not going to get in the way of them cleaning up their mess and putting a band aid on a bullet wound. But I tell you what, there is a better way on the economy. There is a better way on the economy. We've seen that in the past. When we were last in government, our standard of living was 8% higher than it is now. Labor has trashed the economy is not working for hardworking Australians. We need to get back on track.

 

ENDS.