Published in the Australian – 16/08/25
Australia is going in the wrong direction, and we owe it to future generations to course correct.As we become poorer, weaker and more dependent as a nation, living standards are in freefall.
When I speak to young Australians, the message I hear over and over is despair.
They fear that the Australia they will inherit will be worse than the one left to their parents and grandparents.
For an optimistic nation like Australia, this is heartbreaking.
Some young Australians doubt our national story while others loathe it, and there is heightened anxiety about the world they inhabit.
An erosion of our traditional institutions, including the family, church, local clubs, and the local community, is leaving them isolated.
As they look to their future, the great Australian dream of owning their own home and the hope of raising a family are out of reach for too many.
The median house price to income ratio has reached 10x, compared to half that in the US and the UK. Three decades ago, it was just 3x. In Sydney today, it’s reached 14x.
Yet too little has been done to remove barriers to housing supply.
Zoning laws inhibit developments near public transport hubs; heritage laws protect concrete carparks from the 1970s; and stamp duties, taxes, and thickets of red and green tape make it harder to build.
Meanwhile, a union protection racket, backed in by Labor governments across the country, has driven construction productivity down more than 18 percent in a decade.
The Albanese Government, now in its fourth year, after plenty of grandiose schemes and soaring rhetoric, is yet to build a single house.
No wonder Treasury advised the government that its housing target of 1.2 million new homes will not be met. Labor hasn’t moved the needle on supply.
Young Australians know all about the housing crisis because they are living it today.
But it won’t be until later in life that they feel the pain from the Albanese Government’s spending spree, racking up a colossal debt they will be called upon to repay.
This year, the national debt will reach $1 trillion, and is set to hit $1.2 trillion by the next election.
Meanwhile, government spending will reach its highest level outside of recession since 1986 – a time before most millennials were even born.
Given the Treasurer’s plan is to deliver a decade of deficits, all future spending decisions will go straight on the national credit card for future generations to repay.
What makes this even more astounding is that Australia is emerging from a period of record terms of trade, thanks to the resources sector delivering a $241 billion improvement in the budget bottom line over four years, totally beyond Labor’s control.
Had the Treasurer simply sat on his hands and allowed this windfall to pay down debt, Australia’s national debt would have fallen by $241 billion.
Yet the budget papers show it’s only $147 billion lower than originally forecast.
So that means around $100 billion went missing in just three years. Where did it go?
The Treasurer blew the lot: three-quarters went to new on-budget decisions and one-quarter to off-budget items.
A responsible government that cared about future generations would have done what the average family does: it would have lived within its means to make ends meet.
Governments have every right to pursue new initiatives, but they should also have the discipline to find savings to fund them.
The one positive to this economic horror story is that it’s never too late to turn things around.
As a nation, we stand at a fork in the road.
We can turn left and entrench government at the centre, doubling down on Labor’s approach that has made Australia poorer, weaker, and more dependent.
Or we can turn right and restore the Australian people—not government—to the centre, embracing a new approach that will build an Australia that is prosperous, strong and fiercely independent—for generations to come.
We must turn right.
Stopping the government’s spending spree and restoring fiscal discipline is the start.
But it doesn’t end there. We also need to grow the economic pie.
When you listen to this government talk about economics, their focus is never on growing the pie. Instead, they are entirely preoccupied with how to cut it up.
Who will they tax and who will they subsidise; who is permitted and who is prohibited; who is at the table and who is sidelined? Labor’s zero-sum view of the world is small-minded and it holds Australia back from fulfilling its potential.
Instead, we must remember that a rising tide lifts all boats. That boosting supply is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet. That growing our economy is a means to an end—without it, we simply cannot afford the better services we all want.
But, under this government, our per-capita economy continues to shrink. Productivity—the most crucial driver of living standards—is down more than 5% since Labor came to office, and more than 1% in the last year alone.
Under this government, it’s not a question of raising productivity growth—because productivity is going backwards.
We must turn this around.
I spent much of my 20-plus-year professional life before politics overseas in business, so I have an outside awareness of our strengths and opportunities.
The basis of any business strategy is to leverage your core. That means not only core industries – like resources – but capabilities – like smart and innovative people – and other attributes – like our lifestyle and strong institutions.
These are critical. But they are not enough. If we want to restore young Australians’ hope for the future, we must be bold and place aspiration at the centre of everything we do.
The Coalition’s approach to formulating Australia’s next economic policy will be values-led and future-focused.
We will put people, not government, at the centre. We will back Australians in all their forms – the individual, the family, the community, and the entrepreneur.
Our process of developing policy has already begun and we will take the time to get it right. We are listening to Australians and meeting them where they are.
The Albanese Government’s only solution to our nation’s many challenges is to convene a hand-picked group to sit around the cabinet table in Canberra – a process which is starting to look engineered to rubber stamp a doubling down on Labor’s failed tax and spend strategy.
The Coalition will be no such rubber stamp, and we reject any suggestion Labor has a mandate to hike taxes.
The Treasurer has been raising Australians’ expectations that he was finally ready to tackle our big economic challenges, only for his Prime Minister to reel him in. It is clear Labor is not up to the task.
I will attend the roundtable and I am genuinely interested to hear the views of those attending. But my loyalty lies not with Canberra nor the 23 handpicked participants inside the room, but to the 27 million everyday Australians outside of the room.
In considering the proposals put forward, I will apply three simple principles.
First, you don’t raise living standards by raising taxes. Second, you don’t raise living standards by raising the cost of doing business. And third, you don’t raise living standards by raising the burden on the next generation.
You may think these are truths which are hard to argue with.
Yet, the messages we are already hearing from government, as well as those in the union movement, strongly conflict with them.
Nevertheless, I will listen to what people have to say, and I will be constructive where I can and critical where I must.
Soon, the roundtable will be long forgotten.
But the Coalition is looking well beyond it.
Our focus is to build an Australia which is prosperous, strong and fiercely independent. Future generations deserve nothing less.