Fellow Liberals, friends:
We’re just shy of six months out from the state election.
And first and foremost, I want to commend Kellie Sloane for her outstanding leadership.
This morning, Kellie has reiterated her plan and vision for New South Wales.
And her remarks follow on from her policy-rich budget reply.
Kellie – we’re with you all the way.
Can I also acknowledge Peter Collins and Mark Neeham as the newly appointed State President and State Director.
Peter and Mark – thanks for your leadership and the energy you’re putting into the upcoming campaign to win this state back from Labor.
My thanks also to the New South Wales state team.
And to my federal colleagues here today.
Most importantly, my profound appreciation to our loyal members and brilliant volunteers.
I have a special message for you at the end of my speech.
TOUGH BUT NECESSARY MESSAGES
Friends:
We’ve just finished another sitting fortnight in Canberra.
With so much to do, there’s been much to read too.
Two pieces in particular caught my eye.
One was a diagnosis of the state of our nation.
One was a warning to Australians.
The diagnosis came from Chris Uhlmann in his column in The Australian last weekend.
In a sobering read, Uhlmann catalogued the self-inflicted harm that’s turned Australian success into decline.
Expensive, dispersed, and weather-dependent energy has been favoured over the abundant, cheap, and dense energy that we’re blessed with.
Carbon taxes have worked their way through supply chains and made everything cost more.
Slow approvals and a minefield of regulations and laws have undermined investment and seen industries move offshore.
Government spending has grown faster than revenues.
The bureaucracy has grown faster than the productive economy.
Taxes are servicing yesterday’s debt instead of going towards building tomorrow.
And the population is growing faster than what housing supply and infrastructure can support.
Uhlmann said Australia’s self-inflicted pain was much like what Argentina did to itself.
The warning came from Kevin Rudd.
Now, I don’t make a habit of quoting our former Prime Minister.
But I did read the transcript of his National Press Club address.
And he said something which is spot on.
Australia will become “a second-rate country” unless we have “a radical change in our national psychology” and “a new sense of national urgency.”
THE FALSE PROMISE OF BIG GOVERNMENT
Friends:
I’m not going to pretend that the former Coalition government got everything right in our last term of government.
As I outlined in my budget reply, we did make mistakes.
Net zero was a mistake.
Becoming too dependent on other countries for critical supplies like liquid fuels was a mistake.
And our response to the pandemic, while necessary, led to a false belief that government is the solution to every problem.
It was that belief that Anthony Albanese seized upon for his big government agenda.
But whereas the Coalition government had shortcomings, the Albanese government is utterly failing the nation.
For the past four years, we’ve had a government in Canberra which is socialist in all but name.
Labor has centralised and consolidated power.
Labor has bloated the size of government yet stymied free enterprise.
Labor is attacking aspiration with its toxic taxes.
Labor is spending beyond its means.
Labor is for wealth redistribution, not wealth creation.
Labor is driving more Australians to become dependent on government.
And Labor is trying to control what Australians see and hear.
We’ve had incompetent Labor governments before.
But there is something deeply illiberal and power-hungry about the Albanese government.
Only recently, the Prime Minister labelled anyone opposed to his government’s agenda as “dangerous, divisive, and downright dishonest.”
Yet here’s the irony:
Whatever Labor accuses its opponents of, it’s guilty of.
I’ll tell you what’s dangerous:
When you ignore every warning in the economic cockpit and allow the economy to stall.
When you downplay Islamist extremism after the Bondi Beach terrorist attack.
When you introduce legislation to censor Australians who disagree with you.
I’ll tell you what’s divisive:
When you pull up the ladder of opportunity for the next generation by imposing toxic taxes.
When you hold a referendum to divide Australians by race.
When you stand in front of three different flags instead of our one national flag.
I’ll tell you what’s downright dishonest:
When you promise Australians their power bills will come down by $275 dollars a year, …
… but they go up by 40 per cent over your term of government.
When you promise fifty times prior to an election that there will be no changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax, …
… but you make changes after an election.
When you promise Australians that they’ll be better off under a Labor government, …
… but Australians suffer the worst collapse in living standards in the developed world on your watch.
A GOVERNMENT AND PRIME MINISTER IN DENIAL
Friends:
A key reason the country is in such a mess is because the Albanese government can’t admit when it’s wrong and when there are problems.
And when a government can’t admit there are problems, it can’t fix those problems.
This denialism is set from the very top.
Anthony Albanese has no respect for the truth.
For this Prime Minister, a broken promise is never a broken promise, …
… it’s a “change of position”.
For this Prime Minister, a fall from a stage isn’t a fall from a stage, …
… it’s a “step back”.
For this Prime Minister, a dodgy grant to the Marrickville Golf Club isn’t a dodgy grant, …
… it’s looking after a club he’s spent decades looking after.
For this Prime Minister, a best mate and Labor adviser sacked for disgusting social media posts isn’t a best mate, …
… he’s just some distant associate.
For this Prime Minister, a botched policy like cutting health funding to veterans and older Australians isn’t an opportunity to do what’s right, …
… it’s an opportunity to double down on what’s wrong.
And for this Prime Minister, an insulting gesture about a female foreign leader isn’t an insulting gesture, …
… it’s a misinterpretation.
And on the latter point:
While he’s in New York, Anthony Albanese should schedule a meeting with his Japanese counterpart.
He should swallow his pride and show some humility.
He should apologise to a great female leader and great friend of Australia for his crass comments.
Because that’s the right and decent thing to do personally and in the national interest. We live in hope.
REDISCOVERING FAITH IN OURSELVES
Which brings me back to what Kevin Rudd said.
We are on track to becoming “a second-rate country.”
Anthony Albanese’s big government experiment has failed.
We’re in a cost-of-living crisis because Labor has put the economy into crisis.
The more Labor spends, the more prices inflate, the more Australians pay.
Instead of incomes going up faster than prices, prices are going up faster than incomes.
Project Albanese is a disaster.
Economic growth is an illusion – every dollar of growth has been due to population growth, mostly immigration.
The Albanese government is the highest taxing government in our history.
And Labor has put Australia $1 trillion in debt.
We’re a poorer nation, a diminished nation, and a demoralised nation thanks to Labor’s agenda.
Kevin Rudd is right:
We do need “a radical change in our national psychology.”
My message to Australians is this:
We need to stop putting faith in the false promise of big government.
Instead, we need to rediscover faith in ourselves.
We need to remember it’s people – not government – that generate prosperity.
It’s free enterprise and enterprising free Australians who create opportunity, jobs, productivity, investment, and the wealth that benefits us all
We don’t need bigger government.
We need better government.
Better government that gets the big things right.
That gets off Australians’ backs.
That’s for human endeavour – not human control.
We can know a better Australia again.
An Australia where anyone – no matter their background – dreams big and can get ahead through hard work.
An Australia where we dispense with the tall poppy syndrome that too often sees ambition and success disparaged.
An Australia where we revitalise risk-taking and that innate resolve to strive and succeed.
A STRONG TEAM AND A STRONG PLAN
To reverse our country’s economic and social decline, …
… and to bring about better government and a better Australia, …
… you need two things:
First, good government isn’t built around one figure.
You need a strong team.
I look across the parliament.
I look at the Liberals and Nationals.
I look at the people putting their hand up to run for us.
No party comes anywhere close to the depth of experience in the Coalition.
Our people have worked and succeeded in small businesses and industry.
Our people know how to run the economy, to protect our nation, and to generate prosperity.
And only a strong team of experience and knowledge can turn this country around.
The second thing you need is a strong plan.
My budget reply was one of the most ambitious policy statements an opposition has delivered.
Building on that speech, we’ve released the Coalition’s plan to fix the economy and protect our way of life.
My colleagues are sick of me talking about it.
But we’re going to keep telling Australians about our plan, …
… so they know what we stand for, …
… so they know how we will save Australia.
Let me highlight key parts of our plan.
ASPIRATION AND ENTERPRISE
First, we’re going to restore aspiration.
We will axe Labor’s toxic and aspiration killing taxes – like its recently uncovered birth tax.
But we will go further.
We will stop Labor’s stealthy inflation tax.
Australians are paying more in income every year through bracket creep.
Indeed, they’ve paid an additional $65 billion in income tax because of Labor’s inflation.
So we will index tax thresholds to protect Australians’ incomes from inflation.
This is long overdue and proper tax reform.
Under a Coalition government, Australians will get a bigger tax cut each year than under Labor without the tax increases.
A typical worker will be better off by $250 in year one, $500 in year two, $750 in year three, $1,000 in year four, and so on.
We’re also going to restore the conditions that revive business, enterprise, and investment.
We will establish a permanent $50,000 instant asset write-off for businesses with a turnover of under $10 million.
But we will go further and make it easier for people to run a business.
By simplifying key legislation.
And by requiring regulators to stop putting hurdles in the way of business.
ENERGY
Second, we will bring back cheap and abundant energy.
To lower power bills.
And to bring down the cost-of-living and cost-of-doing-business.
So we will scrap net zero.
But we will go further.
We will back any technology that can deliver cheap and abundant energy:
Coal, gas, oil, hydro, batteries, and renewables in the right places, like rooftop solar.
And we will lift the moratorium on nuclear power.
Labor’s anti-development environmental laws will be re-written.
And Labor’s crippling carbon taxes will be scrapped wherever we find them.
Most importantly, we will turbocharge digging and drilling to get more Australian coal, gas, oil and uranium out of the ground for Australians.
HOUSING AND MIGRATION
Third, we’re going to restore the dream of home ownership in Australia.
And that means ending Labor’s mass migration.
We are a great immigration nation – and I came from a great immigrant town, Cooma, in southern New South Wales.
But under Labor, the numbers have been too high and the standards have been too low – and both must change.
The Albanese government has brought in a record 1.5 million people – about the population of Adelaide.
That’s 1,100 people arriving in Australia every day.
We will cap migration numbers based on the number of new homes built each year to free-up supply.
Around 170,000 homes are currently being built each year.
But given the magnitude of migration under Labor, migration will need to be significantly below the cap in the first years of a Coalition government.
We must allow housing to catch up.
We will provide our specific migration number soon.
And this much I promise:
We will deliver one of the biggest cuts to immigration in Australian history.
And we will go further.
We will shift the focus to skilled migration to support small businesses, nation-building projects, and regional Australia.
We will make the Australian Values Statement a legally binding visa condition.
We will invest $5 billion in supporting infrastructure to unlock 400,000 new homes.
And we will slash the National Construction Code to take $70,000 off the cost of a new home.
PUTTING AUSTRALIANS FIRST
Fourth, unlike Labor, we will put Australia and Australians first.
This means many things.
Putting Australians first means crushing the illicit tobacco trade and criminal gangs by cutting the tobacco excise by 80 per cent.
It means reserving access to housing programs, the NDIS, and 17 different welfare programs for Australian citizens only.
Because only when you commit to Australia should Australia commit to you.
Putting Australians first means spending at least 3 per cent of GDP on defence to equip our warfighters in a more dangerous age.
It means always standing up for those who’ve served our great nation.
And my team was proud to force the government this week to scrap its arbitrary cap on allied health services for veterans. We scrapped the cap – now we have to scrap the Minister.
Putting Australians first means protecting our one national flag, Australia Day, and our memorials and places of national significance.
Because our history is worth celebrating, our values are worth defending, and our way of life is worth protecting.
Putting Australians first also means restoring common sense.
The High Court recently refused Sall Grover’s appeal in the case of Giggle v Tickle.
A man is a man.
A woman is a woman.
And we will not allow the ideologues and activists to deny the truth.
Under a Coalition government I lead, we will end this lunacy.
We will change and correct the law to reflect biological reality.
CALL TO ACTION FOR LIBERALS
Friends:
Let me wrap up with an important message for all our members and volunteers.
We must fix the economy.
We must protect our way of life.
And to do these things, we must defeat the socialist Albanese government – the worst government in our nation’s history.
Now, most Australians aren’t political creatures.
To their credit, they seek a quiet life.
But the Australian way of life is being destroyed by Labor.
The country we love is in decline and changing for the worse.
And Australians are furious at Labor.
Australians are angry about Labor’s toxic taxes.
Young, aspirational Australians are angry about being denied the opportunities of previous generations.
Australian families are angry about soaring bills.
Enterprising small and family businesses are angry about an economy where each day is a struggle to survive.
Veterans and our service men and women are angry about being neglected.
Older Australians are angry about having their private health insurance rebate cut.
Regional Australians are angry about the industrial-scale renewables being foisted on their communities.
Friends:
We will not have a better opportunity than this.
To rally people to our cause.
To get people politically activated and mobilised.
That’s how we save Australia.
So how do we do that?
Every little thing you can do will make a difference.
And use your personal connections at every opportunity.
Reach out to your family, your friends, your neighbours, your colleagues.
Reach out to familiar faces at your local shops, at your sporting clubs, at your community groups, at your activities with the kids.
Ask them about the state of our country.
Most people are just as worried as you are.
Tell them about our plan and share it.
Get them to come along to the next branch meeting or Liberal Party event.
We need Australians to stand up, to speak up, and to sign up to the Liberal Party.
If we do nothing, then a terrible, socialist Labor government may survive.
We are in a battle for hearts and minds.
So when you go from here, don’t think, “I’ll leave it to the person next to me to do something.”
All of us need to act.
All of us need to be on the field – not on the sidelines.
If we cannot fight for this country now, there will be no country left worth fighting for.
And if there’s one thing we know it’s that Australia is worth fighting for, now more than ever.
Thank you.
