As the Parliament rises for 2024 we are all left wondering – what went so wrong with the Albanese Government?
Many Australians voted Labor in 2022 hoping that Mr Albanese would make life easier.
Two and half years into the role, hope is all but lost.
Mr Albanese promised to deliver cheaper energy, affordable housing and lower taxes.
Far from seeing his lofty promises delivered, today Australians are doing it tougher than ever on all fronts.
The Albanese Government has been all about bad decisions and wrong priorities.
There is no better example of this than that divisive Voice referendum.
Besides costing the Australian public half a billion dollars, the Voice has left the nation scarred from its divisive campaign.
Yet that’s not even all of it.
It gets worse. Much worse.
All we have seen in the two and a half years since Labor took office is economic mismanagement, a housing and migration mess and reckless spending.
LABOR’S ECONOMIC MISMANAGEMENT
This Albanese Labor Government is the worst that Australians have seen in office since Whitlam.
Let’s run through why that is.
Cost of living is up 18.9 per cent. 1
Interest rates have increased 12 times. 2
Despite interest rates being cut in comparable economies like the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and New Zealand 3,there is no relief in sight for Australian mortgage holders.
Worse yet, mortgage interest repayments have tripled under Mr Albanese. 4
A family with a mortgage is $35,000 worse off today.
We have seen the largest fall in real disposable income, down by 8.7 per cent.
Wage growth is below expectations.
Real wages have gone backwards during Labor’s time in office.
Labor’s budget bottom line has consistently dropped across all but one financial quarter.
This is confirmed by both the Treasury and Deloitte’s independent figures.5
Sadly, this is where we’re at after two and a half long years of Labor and three irresponsible budgets.
Mr Albanese’s incompetence has turned Australia into a global laughingstock.
LABOR’S HOUSING AND MIGRATION MESS
To add to these woes, this Albanese Labor Government is promising to bring in 1.67 million 6 more newcomers over five years under its signature ‘Big Australia’ policy.
This comes at a time when we barely have enough houses for locals.
Yet Labor doesn’t even have a plan for reaching its own target of delivering 400,000 homes.
Building approvals have dropped 8.8 per cent, the lowest in a decade.
Labor has only allowed 158,690 new approvals over the 2023-24 financial year. 7
Let’s be clear, Australia has always been a place where newcomers can come join the family and fulfil their aspirations.
But to continue to be such a place, we must prioritise getting our own house in order first, or houses in this case.
At the current rate, we have one person arriving every 44 seconds.
Even the Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Michele Bullock acknowledges we just aren’t building enough homes.
She warned that some homeowners may have to sell our homes to cope with high inflation and interest rates. 8
It’s about time we got our priorities right.
Three years of Labor’s economic mismanagement, bad decisions and wrong priorities impact all Western Australians and Australians alike.
It means that today we are further away from the great Australian dream of home ownership than ever before.
This alone is reason enough to welcome a change of government.
LABOR’S RECKLESS SPENDING
As if the housing crisis wasn’t enough, Labor even has wrong priorities when it comes to spending taxpayer money.
Let’s run through a few examples.
Labor spent $620,000 over two years 9 to pay for a speech writer to make NDIS Minister Bill Shorten sound more empathetic.
They spent a further $40 million for a spin unit 10 at the Treasurer’s department just to sell their broken promise.
Worse yet, Labor spent $1 billion 11 for a US company to build a quantum computer that even Australia’s own Chief Scientist Cathy Foley reckons won’t deliver us anything quicker than the private sector.
None of this is the work of a responsible government.
LABOR THREATENS OUR GLOBAL ALLIANCES
Israel is our closest ally in the Middle East.
It shares our values of freedom and democracy.
Yet Labor’s Foreign Minister Senator Penny Wong has thrown Israel under the bus by recognising Palestinian sovereignty over natural resources at the United Nations without negotiations as a precondition for peace.12
This is despite the fact that Labor vilified former-Labor now-independent Senator Fatima Payman for seeking much less.
Senator Payman crossed the floor to vote with the Greens to symbolically recognise Palestine as a state locally.
Both Labor and the Coalition voted this down.
Yet by recognising Palestinian sovereignty over natural resources in the disputed territories at the United Nations without negotiations, Labor has effectively gone further than Payman.
What an absolute joke this Albanese Government really is.
This gets worse as well.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong has even refused to condemn the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s politically motivated arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.13
But wait, it gets even worse.
Labor still hasn’t come clean whether it had any input into the embarrassing diplomatic row with Israel over the denial of visa for former Israeli Minister of Justice and Minister of Interior Ayelet Shaked.
For the Coalition, the choice is clear. We side with our allies over terrorists.
At a time when antisemitism has risen to unprecedented scales and Jewish communities feel vulnerable, Labor can’t seem to get enough of its silly games and threatening our global alliances.
But there is good news…
ONLY THE COALITION WILL GET AUSTRALIA BACK ON TRACK
The upcoming Federal Election early next year is our chance to put an end to all of this drama.
A Coalition Government will get Australia back on track.
We will take the lead on sound economic management.
We will fix Labor’s housing and migration mess.
We will stop reckless spending.
We will uplift our standard of living, tame inflation, restore prosperity, create opportunity and restore budget discipline.
We will boost productivity and ensure that taxes are lower, simpler and fairer.
We will stand up for consumers, small businesses and farmers.
We will deliver stronger penalties for anti-competitive behaviour.
Remember that Australians want policies, not pretences.
We want a government that helps build businesses, not bureaucracies.
That great Australian dream of home ownership must be restored.
We will restore that by unlocking up to 500,000 homes through major investments in critical infrastructure.14
We will limit migration in-take and place a two-year ban on foreign investors buying existing homes.15
We will tackle union corruption that is continuing to drive up building costs.
We will take actions to make our communities safer, including online.
Enough of the Voice debacle, the economic mismanagement, the housing and migration mess and the reckless spending.
Enough of Labor. Period.
Only a Dutton Coalition Government will get Australia back on track.
Lastly, I realise there has been plenty of debate over Labor’s proposed censorship laws.
If one thing is clear, it’s that Labor runs for shelter when under pressure.
Remember how the Cook Labor Government in Western Australia backflipped on its appalling Aboriginal Cultural Heritage laws when under pressure?
Well, Mr Albanese’s Federal Government is no different.
They’ve cracked under pressure on their proposed misinformation and disinformation laws.
Such is the power of an effective opposition.
Please read my article that clearly sets out the dangers that Labor and the Greens pose to our democracy.
It’s time to change the government at both State and Federal levels.
With your support, we will.
1 Ministerial Statement on Economy - November 2024
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 As reported in The Australian Tuesday 26th November 2024 (Page 1)