As we move towards the 2025 Federal Election, the failure of the Prime Minister to keep us safe is on display.
As our outstanding Shadow Minister for Defence, Andrew Hastie has said:
"Australia needs to be strong, Australia needs to be sovereign, and Australia needs to be self-sufficient."
Why? Because there are grave strategic challenges to our country that lurk beyond our shores.
Over the last few days, a flotilla of three People’s Liberation Army-Navy warships has sailed through the Coral Sea, turned south towards Sydney, and are now disrupting our commercial flight paths in the Tasman Sea with live fire exercises.
And when the Prime Minister is asked about this he deflects and has no answers.
As our Leader Peter Dutton points out, we've never seen a Prime Minister floundering like this Prime Minister on the issue of national security.
The first charge of the Prime Minister is to keep our country safe and to make sure that we have in place the settings which protect us against any acts of aggression. The Prime Minister is either making this up, shooting from the hip, or completely out of his depth – or maybe all three.
Anthony Albanese and Richard Marles last week both said that we had been notified of the live fire exercises.
This is false.
So they're either misleading the public or they're not across their brief. But either way, it's a very bad look for the Prime Minister who's meant to be leading this country, and his primary job is to keep us safe.
This is more dishonest and tricky politics from a Labor government that is playing down a serious national security matter to protect their own electoral standing.
The Australian people deserve the truth, and they deserve stronger leadership than what they are getting under this weak, dishonest Labor Government.
The Government is trying to argue that, outside of the issue of notice, there is “nothing to see here” regarding the People's Liberation Army (PLA) exercises.
But clearly, there is something to see here. These exercises are concerning. While the live-firing exercises are not unlawful, Australia’s chief intelligence officer has said the deployment is unprecedented.
The Prime Minister has attempted to equate the PLA deployment with Australian exercises in international waters in the South China Sea - but Defence testimony to Senate Estimates rejected the comparison.
Australia does not conduct live-firing exercises on commercial airline routes, and always provides adequate notice of any live-firing exercises that it is involved in.
The Government should be honest with the Australian people about these concerning PLA exercises. It should also express concerns about the exercises to our Chinese counterparts.
While the Coalition will always be measured and calm in our dealings with other nations, we will never be weak. As a nation, we must be mature and confident enough to stand up for what is right.
The Albanese Government’s weakness in foreign affairs is matched only by its weakness in dealing with domestic issues.
Weakness is provocative. Give an inch, and they take a mile. This has been a test for the Prime Minister, and he has failed to stand up for our national interest and insist on mutual respect.
Tony Burke’s citizenship rush
Tony Burke has been pushing thousands of people through citizenship ceremonies without any explanation.
Local Mayors are obviously up in arms about it, and it's right on the eve of the election.
This is a blatant vote buying exercise – and quite frankly it is un-Australian.
The process of awarding citizenship should never be politicised for partisan advantage. And yet, that’s exactly what it is –mass-scale citizenship ceremonies to sign up new voters before the election.
This is Home Affairs Minister instructing his department to welcome almost 13,000 Australians in the months before the election - and insisting on the ceremonies happening during a “window” in which he was available to preside over the ceremonies.
And what is worse officials from the Australian Electoral Commission were on hand to sign the new citizens up to vote.
There are serious questions here that need to be answered – Australian citizenship is a privilege and Australians deserve to know whether there has been any slackening in the process or whether there has there been any compromise on the security checks, as part of this unorthodox process.
The Government must explain this.
Australians continue to do it tough:
The latest inflation data released shows core inflation has risen again.
Core inflation is 3.2 per cent on latest quarterly data.
Under Labor the price of everything remains nearly 11% higher than it was at the last election.
Food is up 13.3%
Housing is up 14.5%
Rents are up 17.6%
Electricity without Gov rebates is up 32.3%
Gas is up 34.2%
Health costs are up 10.2%
Education is up 11.5%
Insurance is up 35%
Holiday travel and accommodation is up 20.0%
The cost of living pain for hardworking Australian families is far from over.
We’ve seen the biggest collapse in living standards in our history since Labor came to power.
A family with a typical mortgage has paid an extra $50,000 in interest payments since Labor came to power. That's $50,000 they're not getting back.
The Prime Minister is distracted and has his eye off the ball, yet again.
The Treasurer is no better – ordering his department to play petty politics instead of focusing on restoring the living standards of struggling Australians.
This is a government that has made bad decisions and wrong priorities throughout its entire term of Parliament. We can't afford another three years of it.
Private Health Care Cost Hike:
While families are grappling with increased prices across the board, the Albanese Labor Government has finally revealed the cost hike they have been hiding from 15 million Australians with their price hike on private health insurance.
It marks the highest premium increase in seven years, and it is above the rate of inflation.
This comes on top of the rising unaffordability of primary healthcare under this government, further adding to Australians’ skyrocketing health costs.
Bulk billing has collapsed by 11% under Labor and there have been 40 million fewer bulk billed GP visits in the past financial year alone, forcing Australians to pay record high out-of-pocket costs.
This is yet another hit to Australians’ household budgets at a time when they can least afford it.
The Albanese Government has hidden this cost hike for months, leaving Australians with private health insurance minimal time to prepare their budgets and shop around.
Labor appears to be on track to kill off our private health system through delay and inaction.
This price hike on private health insurance is just another example, on top of the 14 private maternity wards that have closed under the Albanese Government across the country.
We know Labor hates private health. It was Labor who cut the private health rebate when last in government, which has had a lasting impact on the affordability of private health insurance in Australia.
In fact, former Labor Health Minister Tanya Plibersek once bragged at a press conference, “Every promise I made I paid for. How did I pay for it? I paid for it by targeting private health insurance.”
During the Coalition’s time in Government, we supported more than 15 million Australians to take out private health cover at the lowest rate in more than twenty years.
So let’s get Australia back on track
Prices continue to go up at a rapid rate for Australian families, hard-working Australian families, and they're going up at a faster rate than they were when the last data came out.
It's just more pain for Australians.
The stark reality is only the Coalition will get our economy back on track to improve Australians living standards, to grow the economy and truly beat inflation.
We know what must be done - and Australians know Labor isn't capable of reversing its serious economic damage.
The Coalition will cut red tape and reduce compliance costs in our financial services system to make it easier and cheaper for Australians to pursue their aspirations.
Red tape is driving up prices and making it harder to get affordable insurance, get into the housing market, or to start a business.
Compliance costs are as high as $1 billion for some companies - this is a hidden tax Australian consumers pay every time we open a bank account, buy a share, or apply for a loan.
We will:
Reform our banking policies to support home ownership, small business lending, and more affordable insurance.
Increase competition in our financial sector to ensure consumers and small banks have a voice at the table.
Simplify our laws to make it easier to run a business and help Australian businesses and families invest with confidence.
Work with regulators to ensure these policies deliver a safe, innovative financial services sector that delivers for consumers.
Along with our lower taxes for small business, these initiatives form part of the Coalition's plan to rebuild business and restore Australia’s economic potential.
Labor’s big government, big spending agenda is building bureaucracies, not businesses.
This will only keep inflation high because it requires more government spending which can only come from higher taxes.
We need a strong economy to beat inflation and restore living standards - and only the Coalition will deliver that.
We are prepared to be a government which stands up for our interests on the world stage.
We will do what it takes to rebuild the Australian economy, to clean up a Labor mess, exactly as John Howard and Peter Costello did in 1996.
We won't shirk the responsibilities that sit on the shoulders of the government and a prime minister of the day.
We will clean up this Labor Government’s mess and we will get our country back on track.
You can read more about our plan to get Australia back on track at www.liberal.org.au/our-plan.