INTRODUCTION

Thank you, Tom and thank you Westpac for sponsoring today’s event.

To colleagues here today – our economic team Jane Hume, Luke Howarth and Dean Smith thank you for everything over the last three years.  To Dave Sharma, Ross Cadell great to have your here.

I’d also like to acknowledge our ACT colleagues in the room – led by Leanne Castley.

This election is about the economy.

It is about who Australians trust to restore their living standards.

Their hope and aspirations for their future, and the future of their families.

We need strong economic management to restore Australian’s prosperity.

Economic management that has been lacking from a distracted government, that did not treat the cost of living crisis with the urgency it deserved.

THE ECONOMY

Economics is about people.

One of the great privileges of being Shadow Treasurer is travelling across the country and meeting Australians from all walks of life. 

In the lead-up to the Budget, I spent the week on the road with some of the outstanding Coalition candidates who are fighting for better representation for their communities.

Our candidates include factory managers, farmers, trade lawyers, investment bankers, small business owners, and school principals. 

Our team reflects the people they seek to represent, both in experience and ambition.

From Burnie in North Tasmania to Rowville in South East Melbourne and Killara in North Sydney, the message I heard was clear – Australians cannot afford another three years of Labor.

Across the country, people are being let down by a government with the wrong priorities and no plan to restore prosperity. 

Too many Australians I meet feel there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

The Coalition set three tests for this budget, reflecting our priorities if we were in government:

1.      Restore our standard of living and get inflation down sustainably

2.      Restore a pathway to prosperity and hope for all Australians, particularly when it comes to small business and home ownership

3.      Restore budget discipline and honesty

The budget failed these tests and in doing so, failed Australians.

For fatigued Australian families, it was another demonstration of a government preoccupied with its priorities, not the concerns of Australian families.

This was a budget for re-election, not for the future of our great nation.

We see this in collapsing living standards and the corrosive impact of long running inflation.

Indeed, living standards have collapsed by 7.9% under Labor - and on Labor’s only plans they won’t recover until the 2030s – a lost decade.

This collapse is the worst on record and worse than any peer country.

On average prices are 11% higher and still going up and for working families, living costs have risen by almost 20%. History tells us that inflation has a nasty habit of resurging.

Real wages have fallen over the last three years and are not expected to recover to 2020 levels until 2032.

At the same time Australia has experienced the longest per capita recession on record.

Families are struggling in ways they never had before.

We see a record number Australians working multiple jobs, digging deep into their savings and cutting back on non-essentials, and even essentials.

The conclusion is simple and it is stark. Australians are poorer under Labor.

Foodbanks are overwhelmed, and the demand on their services is increasing, not falling.

Families with mortgages, two incomes and two cars are now queuing for food banks.

This is the face of Labor’s economy.

In Peter Dutton’s budget reply, the Coalition committed to deliver $50 million over four years for food charities – like Foodbank, SecondBite and OzHarvest – to expand their services.

This is a necessary investment, because this is a crisis.

The great Australian dream of seeking to own a home or start a business is fading for many.

Inflation, interest rates, and rising taxes are making opportunity seem like a foreign concept.

Stubborn inflation has seen interest rates go up 12 times, and down just once under Labor.

Indeed a typical family with a mortgage has paid out $50,000 they weren’t expecting to pay three years ago, turning a dream into a nightmare.

Small businesses are closing at record levels with 29,000 insolvencies under Labor.

The real incomes of small business owners have collapsed by over 18% over the same time.

Personal income taxes have increased by 24 per cent under Labor.

The average taxpayer paid $3,500 more in tax this year alone – or $7,000 more for a dual income household.

Inflation does that – it raids household budgets to fund the government budget.

For a family that is $50,000 worse off and paying thousands more in tax - Labor’s 70 cents a day election bribe does nothing to stop the ongoing impost of collapsing incomes and rising costs.

Labor’s own budget papers show that tax per person will be higher by the second year of their 70 cents a day policy than on the day they are introduced.

It is an insult to Australians.

And the budget is deteriorating before our eyes

Despite an inflation fuelled tax windfall, surpluses look as fleeting as rate relief.

This budget was silent on restoring budget discipline for the three fiscal challenges facing our economy:

• How we provision for budget repair to take the heat off inflation, prepare for future shocks, provide for essential services and avoid leaving a massive liability to our children and grandchildren
• How we provision for the defence of our nation in the most uncertain time since the Second World War.
• How we address the impact of rising taxes for businesses and households driven by inflation.

These are three vital, if competing challenges that require a strategic, balanced and long-term approach to secure our nation’s prosperity.

Instead, Labor has delivered an incoherent fiscal strategy that talks about economic responsibility while growing debt, increasing taxes, and driving up structural spending.

The contrast is clear when you compare today’s budget what Labor inherited. Over the next four years: 

• Debt will reach $1.2 trillion - $125,000 higher for every household.
• Taxes will be $532 billion higher - $51,000 higher for every household
• Labor will spend an extra $425 billion - $41,000 for every household.

This spending splurge comes with a generational cost: $179.5 billion in deficits that can only be paid for with higher inflation, higher taxes, or higher debt.

Labor is offering all three.

Not only is this situation unprecedented and unparalleled, it is not what Australians experienced under the Coalition government:

• Core inflation has averaged 4.1% under Labor vs 2.2% under the Coalition
• Interest rates have averaged 3.6% under Labor vs 1.3% under the Coalition
• Underlying electricity prices are 32% higher. Gas prices are 34% higher.

The Treasurer likes to argue that his failures are someone else’s fault.

The variable in this equation is not global factors, it is a bad Labor government.

A government that spent, when homegrown inflationary pressures were high.

A government that obsessed over the soft landing, ignoring that it meant a long squeeze for family budgets.

A Treasurer whose priority is remaking capitalism, rather than restoring living standards.

Even as we start this campaign – we have had a Prime Minister spend more time telling lies about Medicare than talking about the cost of living.

It’s more student politics than good government.

Australia needs strong leadership with a steady hand to get back on track and back to basics.

We need to prioritise solving problems that matter to Australians and restoring hope and aspiration.

This is what Peter Dutton and our team are offering at this election. 

OUR SOLUTION

Last Thursday Peter outlined our alternative to restore aspiration and hope to those Australians left behind by Labor’s cost of living crisis.

Today I want to outline our strong economic vision to address these issues.

Our plan will get Australian back on track and deliver a low inflation, strong growth economy. 

The answer isn’t more expensive and ineffective government programmes. A Coalition government will make it our mission to:

1. Beat inflation sustainably
2. Repair our housing and energy markets
3. Revive growth through Investment and backing small business
4. Deliver targeted, timely tax Relief
5. Restore the Budget to protect our nation

This requires unleashing the enterprise and energy of the great Australian people.

And most important, it means attracting the investment that will drive growth, productivity and prosperity.

That means replacing red tape with freedoms.

Anxiety with confidence.

And pessimism with hope.

BEAT INFLATION

Beating inflation sustainably will be the number one priority of a Dutton government.

This is particularly important while prices are still too high with the RBA highlighting yesterday inflation risks are still strong.

The Coalition knows the long-term solution to inflation lies in reining in wasteful spending and restoring productivity in our economy.

We have identified over $100 billion in spending across this term that was not necessary. 

We have highlighted key programs – not essential services – that we will wind back in government to reduce pressure on spending.

To boost productivity and restore opportunity, we need to tackle the supply challenges that are holding us back.

This requires unlocking investment and cutting red tape.

But we know these are not overnight solutions.

This is why we will have proposed targeted cost of living relief with a halving of the petrol tax.

Our plan is about real relief now, while getting inflation sustainably back on track

FIX HOUSING AND ENERGY
Fixing housing and energy are essential to restore prosperity and opportunity.

Australians feel the pain of cost of living most acutely through housing and energy affordability.

A collapse in home ownership has profound implications not just for our aspirational character, but the costs of our retirement system.

The challenge requires every lever to be pulled with a focus on three in particular: security, serviceability, and supply.

Security: We will restore the original promise of super to support first home ownership, and work with APRA to get our first homeowners a fairer go, making it easier for Australians to secure a home

Serviceability: Sustainably beating inflation will put downward pressure on interest rates as we continue to support of the First Home Guarantee. We will work with APRA to give LMI backed mortgages fairer pricing and make it easier for Australians to afford to retain their homes by reducing the overly cautious serviceability buffer.

Supply: We will freeze the national construction code, restore law and order on our building sites and rebuild our construction trades to bring down the cost of building new supply. We’ll cut migration and invest in breaking infrastructure bottlenecks to unlock over 500,000 more homes for Australians.

On energy we need more supply and more energy. This will bring down prices for households and businesses.

We must complement the growing share of renewables with baseload power.

Ensure Australian gas is working for Australians through establishing an East Coast production Reservation.

And bring forward more gas through our National Gas Plan, unlocking the North West Shelf.

To decarbonise our grid and secure baseload energy to support manufacturing and data jobs into the 2030s, we will reform our energy laws to establish a zero emissions nuclear power industry.

Secure and affordable housing and energy are the foundations for living standards and our economy.

They are vital to a prosperous economy that can support aspiration and hope.

But affordable energy and housing alone are wasted if they are not used as foundations for a broader and vibrant private sector.

REVIVING GROWTH THROUGH INVESTMENT, AND BACKING SMALL BUSINESS

To strengthen our economy, creating jobs and restoring productivity, we need more investment and a stronger small business sector.

This is core to the Coalition’s plan to grow the Australian economy.

We face a global race for investment, yet Australia’s policy settings are leaving us behind.

As I travel the nation, the constant feedback I get from companies is it is too hard to invest in Australia.

Approvals are too slow.

Finance is too hard to find.

Building is too expensive.

Government and unions create too many barriers.

Investment Australia

Two budgets ago, Labor promised a single front door for investment.

Two budgets later, the door hasn’t opened.

Today I announce that the Coalition will go further and undertake one of the most significant changes to how government facilitates private sector investment in decades.

We will establish a statutory office within Treasury called Investment Australia.

Investment Australia will consolidate and streamline investment facilitation across government –  under a united function with clear leadership that reports directly to the Treasurer and the Cabinet.

It is about fast tracking investment, not holding it back with bureaucracy.

We will bring the Major Project Facilitation Agency into Treasury, consolidating the market and infrastructure functions of the Treasury, and bring elements of Foreign Investment screening and the Takeovers Panel under a united function.

It will be backed by a legislative framework and mandate: to boost our competitiveness and to facilitate investment.

Investment Australia will be led by a Chair and Deputy Chair with strong private sector and public administration experience.

Its legislated powers will include call in powers to hold regulators and agencies accountable for bureaucratic delays on significant projects for our nation, implementing statutory deadlines for approvals and pathways for escalation to Cabinet.

This will drive Australian jobs, increase investment into Australia, and restore our economic potential.

Central to Investment Australia’s competitiveness mandate will be a mission is to make it cheaper to build, finance, and power our country.

Within 100 days, we will appoint the Investment Australia Chair and establish three investment taskforces to reduce regulatory costs in our key enabling sectors: financial services; construction; and resources and energy.

These taskforces will focus on unlocking productivity and drive growth in these sectors.

This is not an inquiry but rolling and structural red tape reduction to reduce costs to consumers and bring down the cost of doing business and the cost of living.

Energy is the economy, but so too are construction and financial services.

The costs in these sectors are embedded in everything we buy. If they go backwards, our economy goes backwards. If they are strong, the economy is strong.

Success means restoring the dream of home ownership, reviving our manufacturing base, bringing down the costs of energy, rebuild small business.

It will strengthen our mining and resources industries, our world leading agricultural sector, and our forestry and fisheries.

But it also sets up our future industries: data centres, critical minerals, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, clean technology, space and defence industry, and zero emissions nuclear energy – for success.

Investment Australia is a structural reform that will provide a lasting message that Australia is open for business.

It will streamline our overlapping and confusing public service agencies, while driving a pro-business, pro-investment mindset throughout the public service.

It will implement strong accountability for regulators and bureaucrats.

And create a pathway through for critical stalled projects.

The strong, productive, low inflation economy that comes from more investment will fix the cost-of-living crisis, restore our economic potential, enable essential services and strengthen the budget to keep all Australians safe in an uncertain world.

Australia As A Financial Centre

Today I also announce that a Coalition government will also pursue a clear ambition to make Australia a financial centre for our region.

In recent months I have outlined policies to drive this agenda.

• Reforming our capital markets to strike the balance between financial stability and affordability of getting into a home, getting insurance, and starting a business.
• Enacting the Productivity Commission’s 2018 recommendation to boost competition in our financial services by putting the ACCC on the Council of Financial Regulators.
• Reforming the corporations act to simplify our financial services law and unleash our corporate bond market.
• Establishing a taskforce to develop a Foreign Investment Fast Track for trusted investors from our key security partners.

On Thursday, Peter Dutton announced four bills that will be introduced in our first day of Parliament. The Energy Price Reduction Bill; The Lower Immigration and More Homes for Australians Bill; The Keeping Australians Safe Bill; and the Guaranteed Funding for Health, Education, and Essential Services Bill.

Today I announce that the Coalition will introduce the Securing Australia as a Financial Centre Bill within 100 days following the election.

This Bill will legislate key financial services reforms that Labor has failed to prioritise – ranging from payments system reforms, digital assets regulation, and restoring our financial advice profession.

Our financial system is the nervous system of our economy. At its best, it supports Australians to fulfil their dreams and realise their aspirations.

This will unlock our financial sector and make it easier for Australians to afford a home, plan their retirement, and start a business.

Backing Small Business & Skills

We cannot do this without a strong small business sector.

Small businesses are the lifeblood of our community and the engine room of our economy.

Australian small businesses are being crowded out by a ballooning public service and the rising costs of Labor’s red and green tape.

For small businesses under Labor, there is no light at the tunnel.

To restore this, the Coalition has outlined our plans to make the instant asset write off permanent, to simplify meal deductions and save FBT compliance costs, to increase competition and access for small business lending, and to make it easier for small businesses to employ.

Michaelia Cash, Sussan Ley and I have finalised a comprehensive small business policy package that will be unveiled over coming weeks.

Our announcement on Thursday that a Dutton Coalition Government will set a target of 400,000 apprentices and trainees in training across Australia is the next step in this agenda.

Our plan is to restore targeted and proven incentive payments for employers to hire and train an apprentice.

We will provide small and medium businesses with $12,000 to support them to put on a new apprentice or trainee in critical skills areas for the first two years of their training.

Driving the next generation of trades will not just address our housing crisis, but create a new generation of small business owners.

Apprentices start work early, hone their trade, and then often go off to create their own businesses – taking on more apprentices of their own.

Our policy sends a clear message that you do not need to go to university to fulfil your dreams, and will elevate our trades and training as one of the best professions Australians can undertake.

We want more Australians to take the leap to be their own boss, to grow their businesses, and employ Australians.

A dynamic small business sector and thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem will be a bedrock of our economic strategy and a priority for me as Treasurer.

Backing our small businesses is essential to delivering a low inflation, strong economy. Because when small businesses grow, Australia grows.

TARGETED TIMELY TAX CUTS

This is why small business is central to our tax policy at this election.

Targeted and timely tax relief is our focus heading into this election.

A Dutton Coalition government will deliver immediate tax relief. On day one of the new Parliament, we will move to legislate our fuel tax cut.

Our cut to the fuel tax will provide immediate relief to families, tradies, and countless small businesses.

Our permanent and higher Instant Asset Write Off and Simpler Meal Tax Deductions will support small businesses recovery and give 98% of Australian businesses a tax cut when they invest in productive assets.

Our tax to GDP cap is not just a fiscal rule. It is a lower taxes guarantee to the Australian people – ensuring we manage spending and create room for future tax cuts.

We will not cross the rubicon of taxing unrealised capital gains in Australians retirement savings because it is awful policy, forcing small business people and farmers to sell down their businesses.

The Coalition is the party of lower, simpler, and fairer taxes and we are delivering that at this election.

Lower taxes must sit alongside the Liberal and National values of strong budget management and ensuring we protect our nation.

The Budget deterioration means that the pathway to balancing all three objectives is to strengthen economic growth.

We cannot provision for essential services, protect our nation from future shocks, and secure the defence of our nation by robbing one generation for another.

Any politician who pretends otherwise is just not being honest with the Australian people.

As an alternative government, we are prepared to be the adults in the room.

It’s why we’ve been clear that the starting point for real tax reform is strong economic management.

RESTORING THE BUDGET TO PROTECT OUR NATION
We will restore good budget management and economic responsibility. It is the key to fighting inflation and delivering the essential services;

• Ensuring primary health care and mental health
• Funding our training system and setting our children up for success.
• Protecting our nation from foreign threats and natural disasters

But it is also essential to prepare us for the unexpected challenges the world forces on us.

The Coalition balanced the budget before COVID and it enabled us to get Australia through the pandemic in a world-leading economic position.

We have already made a significant point of difference from opposition, opposing $100 billion of bad spending that only puts more pressure on inflation.

Billions for transmission lines to nowhere. Housing funds that have not built a house. Manufacturing funds that are failing to stop closures in the face of soaring energy prices.

We have opposed Labor’s expansion of the balance sheet and will take steps to clean up the growth in off-budget spending.

We will restore the budget rules that have underpinned every good budget from Peter Costello through to 2022.

• Restoring the tax to GDP cap
• Ensuring our spending grows at less than GDP growth
• Committing to restoring the budget to structural balance over the medium term.

We will embed a whole of economy productivity target in our fiscal strategy and elevate productivity as the primary growth lever of our economy.

By embedding a productivity target in our economic strategy, restoring productivity will be a rolling, whole of government mission across all portfolios.

This will set us up for the growth that will enable us to fund defence and essentials, fix the budget, and pursue lower taxes.

This is about protecting future generations, and ensuring we can fund essential services.

Responsible budget management is essential to protect our nation.

It is essential to beat inflation.

And it is essential to afford genuine tax reform – that provides lasting relief to families and sets our economy up for success.

Labor has failed to manage the budget and it is failing to respond to the threats and challenges Australians are facing.

A Dutton Government will restore strong budget management to get Australians back on track. 

CONCLUSION

Our plan is a supply-side agenda to grow the economy and keep inflation low.

It’s a strong Liberal plan — in the tradition of Peter Costello and John Howard — grounded in economic responsibility and driven by enterprise.

The Coalition has the toolkit needed to bring down the cost of living and get the economy back on track.

This election is about leadership as much as policy.

In Peter Dutton, we have a strong leader and a steady hand.

And in the Coalition, we have a team grounded in real life — farmers, business owners, veterans, and professionals — not just career politicians.

As Treasurer, my mission is clear: to rebuild Australian prosperity and restore the hope and aspiration Labor has left behind.

I want an economy where opportunity thrives, ambition is rewarded, and Australians have the confidence to back themselves again.

I bring to this role the experience of starting businesses, working at the highest levels of industry, and growing up on a family farm — where you learn how decisions in Canberra shape life around the kitchen table.

We are ready to govern.

We are ready to deliver:

• A stronger economy with lower inflation
• Cheaper energy
• More affordable homes
• Better healthcare
• And safer communities
   

And we will govern with respect for the views, values and aspirations of everyday Australians.

Australians cannot afford three more years of this Labor Government.

We are offering a better choice — for families, for the economy, and for the country.

Let’s build a stronger, safer, and more prosperous future.

Let’s get Australia back on track