Mr LITTLEPROUD (Maranoa—Leader of the Nationals) (15:45): I ask you to cast your mind back to election it when the Prime Minister said, 'No-one will be held back, no-one will be left behind.' Bring yourself forward 2½ years, and Australians are now asking themselves: do they really feel better off after 2½ years of Anthony Albanese? After those 2½ years, the country has clearly gone in one direction—one where he has divided a country and sent us broke. We got a real insight into that in just under 12 months, when he decided to take the country down a path of the Voice referendum, dividing this nation. He told us that he was going to spend over $450 million on a referendum without even going through the proper process of calling a constitutional convention, bringing all Australians together, because the Constitution is owned by every Australian. Instead he told us that we're going to repeat the mistakes of the past by bringing back ATSIC Mark 2—not changing the livelihoods of regional Indigenous Australians but repeating those mistakes. Australians saw through it. Instead of listening to the Australian people after that referendum, the Prime Minister did nothing. The only action to take place—and it was, in fact, the very week after that referendum—was that taken by the Leader of the Opposition and I. We came to this place, and we heard that the result of that referendum was that they didn't want more bureaucracy. They wanted a better bureaucracy, and they wanted action. So we introduced in this place two pieces of legislation. One was around a royal commission into child sexual abuse in Central Australia, and the second was about an audit to ensure that the over $4 billion that's being spent by Australian taxpayers in the expectation that we will close the gap for the most marginalised in this country is being spent wisely. That's common sense. But this government could not even bring themselves to respect the result of the referendum and listen to the voices of the Australian people about the action that they wanted. Instead, they turned their back on it and, since then, have barely uttered one word about Indigenous Australians. They wasted $450 million that could have helped close the gap with practical solutions. They wasted Australian taxpayers' money, and all it ended up being was a vibe. The government's economic management continues to put pressure on Australian families. Some Australian families tonight will not be able to afford dinner. In a country as rich as Australia, in a country of 27 million people that produces enough food and fibre for 80 million, that is a national shame. It's a shame because what this government has done is continue to spend Australian taxpayers' money because their belief in their ideology hasn't met the practical reality of addressing the fundamentals of what's keeping your interest rates higher: the fact that inflation is staying higher. Discretionary spends have stopped. We've stopped going to Gerry Harvey and buying TVs and fridges because we can't afford it, but your fixed spending continues to go up because those opposite—this government—after 2½ years have failed to acknowledge that they have to address the fundamentals. If you look at where the fixed spending continues to remain high and continues to increase, it's in energy, food and rents. That has kept inflation higher, which means your interest rates have remained higher. In fact, the average mortgage in this country has gone up an extra $35,000. So $35,000 has ben ripped out of Australian families' wallets because of the mismanagement of this government. They haven't been prepared to face up to the fact that the ideology around shifting to an all-renewables approach for an energy grid cannot work. There's no country of the industrial scale and size of Australia that has gone with an all-renewables approach. Instead, they have sent investment signals that have reduced our baseload supply, driven up prices and take away confidence not just in households but also in the industry. Manufacturing cannot continue to be subsidised to keep going. To have manufacturing in this country you have to fix fundamentals. You have to have affordable and reliable baseload power and you have to have proper industrial relations policy. This government's failed on both. But, then, because they understood that households were copping it in the neck because of their promise of a $275 reduction in electricity bills for households that was never going to be seen—in fact, we have seen an increase of over $800—they had to do something about it. What they did is spend $6.5 billion of Australian taxpayer dollars in papering over cracks and to say, 'We're not going to fix the fundamentals; we're just going to buy ourselves out of trouble politically.' There was a politician up in my home state of Queensland who did that about three months ago—Steven Miles. He had a closing down sale in Queensland. He gave the show away. He gave everything away in a crude attempt to hold power. That is what this government is doing. They are giving it all away. They're now dipping into your Future Fund because of their economic mismanagement. In fact, they still can't face up to those fundamentals of inflation, and we're seeing poor inflation. That real number that the RBA governor uses to determine where rates will go went up last month from 3.2 to 3.5 per cent. The RBA governor only acts in reaction to the actions of this government, and the reckless spending of this government continues to put pressure on the RBA governor. That is putting pressure on households and putting pressure on businesses. In fact, things are so bad out there at the moment that we are seeing over 20,000 small-business insolvencies. They employ mums and dads that are trying to pay their mortgages. They have lost their livelihoods and businesses. They've had to sweat and have the courage of their own convictions to go and start a business and employ people, and now they have lost it and had to let their employees go. You can see that what is happening out there in this economy is that this government is ramming this economy into a wall. The RBA governor is now in a state of flux about what to do. They cannot control inflation, but they are sending the economy dead broke. This is the challenge that Australians are feeling today. When you think about the central policies that will address the fundamentals, they include having an all-energy mix, not putting all our energy eggs in one basket. We have sovereignty of all our resources. That will address the energy prices that you are receiving now. If you want to bring them down quicker, get some more gas into the supply quickly. You can get gas into the grid quickly. That will bring food prices down. Food processors are paying three to sometimes four times what they were two to three years ago. The bill that the government brought in today around the big tough penalties they're bringing in for supermarkets is business as usual. They're bringing in infringement notices to tell the supermarkets that they are treating farmers and also consumers poorly to a maximum of $187,800. If I whip down to Civic here and go to one of their stores, I could pull that out of the till. That's just a cost of doing business. Supermarkets do not fear these people. When you see Australians who, tonight, will struggle to put food on the table, why wouldn't you do something about it? Those are the real policy levers you can pull that don't cost a cent. They would put downward pressure on prices. You've also got to give Australians the hope of one day fulfilling that dream of owning a home. This crowd are bringing 1.67 million people into this country. That is a city bigger than the size of Adelaide. They are bringing in dog groomers and martial arts instructors instead of maybe thinking about bringing in some builders, sparkies, roofers and tilers. If you're going to bring that number in, you're going to have to build some homes. What's happened is young people have lost hope. They've lost hope of ever owning a home, because it's all about supply. While building that supply sits with state and local government, the levers that we pull in this place help them. If you're going to not have the commonsense solution around migration to bring in—because we should determine who comes the country, the skills they have and where we want them to live. We're giving those people around planet the greatest gift we give anybody: a ticket to Australia. Our coalition, if we become government after the next election, will ban foreigners from competing with Australians for residential options for two years. We're going to put a pause on this increase in building standards going up to seven stars, lifting the cost of building a home by over $60,000. No wonder no-one can afford it. We've got to get back to some basics, get back to understanding we've been given the privilege of spending Australian taxpayers' money. We've got to do it properly and to pull the policy levers that will actually do the lifting rather than having to spend Australian taxpayers' money, because, ultimately, Australians can't afford another three more years of Anthony Albanese.