Tom Venning
Grey · Liberal Party · Australia
“Residential burglaries, commercial property theft and daylight shoplifting have left citizens and business owners feeling completely helpless as crime targets every sector of this great regional community. Police statistics show the town is in the midst of a spate of burglaries, with 34 incidents recorded in the first half of June alone.”
“For the Port Augusta community, the most difficult part of this crime wave is what they view as a revolving door bail system for serious juvenile offenders and a lack of quality youth diversion programs in the region. Police can only do so much.”
“Mr Kean was personally chosen by the Prime Minister to lead the Climate Change Authority. It has now been revealed that he spent over $32,000 on one single trip to Brazil last year for an international climate conference.”
“Imagine sitting around the dining table with your family and telling them, 'We're going to spend more money than we receive every year for the next 10 years.' You wouldn't. In fact, you can't, yet that's exactly what this Labor government and this Treasurer are doing. To pay for this, they deploy toxic taxes, assaulting aspiration.”
“Labor cannot manage money, so they continue to come after yours. The average Australian's paying 39 per cent more tax under this government. Since Labor was elected, Australia suffered the biggest fall in living standards in the developed world.”
“It's lifting prices, inflating government charges and pushing hardworking Australians into paying more tax. While Labor profits from this inflation, their tax cuts do not keep up. At 70c a day, they won't even buy a cup of coffee a week.”
The complete record
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“We committed $500 million to the Australian War Memorial redevelopment, and what an amazing asset it is. It's so important that younger people can come to the nation's capital and understand the history of what the Aussie diggers did for the beautiful, prosperous society that we have today. We ensured that the stories of contemporary veterans, our modern diggers, are told with the same respect and visibility as the Anzacs of old. We established the Joint Transition Authority to hold Defence accountable. We delivered provisional access to medical treatment so veterans didn't have to wait for claims to be assessed before seeing a doctor. We increased fees for health professionals to keep doctors in the system.”
“Veterans lives have been saved by these dogs. This program is now supporting hundreds of veterans across Australia with tailored, life-changing therapy dogs, and this was a coalition initiative. We established the Prime Minister's Veterans' Employment Award to celebrate employers who hire veterans. We helped ADF personnel transition into civilian careers. We launched the Veteran Wellbeing Centre Program, which put bricks and mortar into communities. We delivered support hubs in Darwin, Perth, Adelaide, Albury-Wodonga, Nowra, Tasmania, South-East Queensland and Townsville. They are places where veterans can go for help, to meet mates and to find support. We created the role of the veterans family advocate. We ensured that the voices of families, often the unsung heroes of service, were heard in every major political decision.”
“We introduced and passed the Australian Veterans' Recognition (Putting Veterans and Their Families First) Act 2019. We created the veterans' covenant, the veteran card and the lapel pin. We ensured that there was proper national recognition for service and, indeed, sacrifice. We made sure that business and the community could say thank you in a practical way. We provided free non-liability mental health care—this was a game changer. We said that, for any veteran who completed at least one day of full-time service, mental health care was free. We removed the barriers. We didn't ask for paperwork first; we offered help. We expanded and modernised Open Arms—Veterans & Families Counselling. We made sure it was fit for purpose and accessible for everyone who needed it. We initiated the Psychiatric Assistance Dog Program.”
“The coalition stands with the veterans who are worried about their heritage being sold to the highest bidder, we stand with the communities who want these sites protected, and we stand against a fire sale that treats a national security asset, our national security estate, like a garage sale. Finally, I want to address the broader context of support for our veterans. We often hear criticism from those opposite, but let's look at the record. When the Liberal-National coalition was in government, the portfolio of veterans' affairs was given cabinet status. That is a clear indication of respect. It shows that veterans' issues were at the heart of government decision-making. The coalition also delivered more than $11 billion every year in support for veterans and their families.”
“The New South Wales Premier is worried about the heritage of Victoria Barracks, the Greens want to turn our military history into housing blocks and the Minister for Defence seems to think that this is only about 'value for money'. Strategic assets are not just about money; they are about capability and they are about history. To sell off these sites without proper scrutiny, without a clear plan and potentially just to plug a hole in the budget or to cover for the government's failures on housing is short-sighted. It is risky. As the RSL said, the headline figure on the sale might look very different when the final accounting is done.”
“I'd like to give a special shout-out to the Port Augusta RSL, who, at Anzac Day last year, offered me the first gunfire breakfast. If you don't know what a gunfire breakfast is, it's at 8 am and you have milk and rum—a good way to start the day! Labor want to sell off the assets that support the recruitment, training and retention of our ADF personnel. They claim that this will raise billions of dollars, but the RSLs have warned that remediation and cleaning up these sites could also cost a fortune, and it could take a decade. We have seen this movie before. We saw failed divestment processes at North Head in Sydney and Portsea in Victoria. We urge the government: do not repeat these mistakes.”
“We are currently facing the most dangerous strategic environment in generations. The world is less safe today than it was yesterday. And what is Labor's response? To sell off the assets that support the recruitment, training and retention of ADF personnel. The RSLs have spoken out, and we should listen to them. RSL National President Peter Tinley puts it perfectly. He said: But these aren't empty paddocks on a spreadsheet … He is right. These are places of history. These are places of heritage. These are places that matter to the veterans who marched on those parade grounds. There are 30 RSLs in the electorate of Grey, and they have such an important role for our community. I'd like to give a special shout-out to the RSLs in Port Lincoln, Coober Pedy, Cummins, Port Augusta and Port Pirie for welcoming me into their communities.”
“While we are debating how to best support our veterans and secure their future, we must look at what Labor is doing to our strategically important Defence assets across Australia. It's important to me because in my electorate of Grey we have three Defence assets: the proof range south of Port Wakefield; the Army base at Cultana; and Woomera, a significant asset to our Western alliances over the past 100 years. We've learned this week that the Albanese Labor government is planning a fire sale of more than 60 Defence properties. They are planning to sell off historic sites like the Victoria Barracks in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. They want to sell HMAS Penguin . They want to sell RAAF Base Point Cook. The shadow minister for defence, the member for Hume, has rightly called it what it is, a fire sale.”
“And what did Labor do in 2020? They opposed that bill. Because of Labor's political games, the establishment of the body was delayed—and that delay matters. It matters because early independent oversight, working alongside the royal commission, could have accelerated system reform. It could have brought earlier accountability to Defence and the DVA. The structure Labor is now implementing closely mirrors what the coalition proposed at the very same time Labor voted against that bill. The coalition will support this framework because veterans and families cannot afford any further delay, but the history should be acknowledged: Labor put politics ahead of veterans' wellbeing five years ago.”
“We need independent, system-wide oversight. We need eyes on the problem that are outside of the bubble that is this God-awful Canberra bureaucracy. One of the most significant recommendations from the royal commission was the creation of a permanent independent statutory oversight body—a body to drive reform. That is what these bills intend to do, and that is why the coalition supports them. However, it is important to put something on the record. This idea of an independent oversight body is not an invention of the Labor Party. In fact, the coalition introduced legislation to establish an independent national commissioner for defence and veteran suicide prevention back in 2020, five years ago. That bill proposed an independent statutory oversight body with basically the same features Labor is implementing today.”
“It was a Liberal-National government that established the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide. We did it because it was right. We established it because veterans and their families deserved the truth. They deserved accountability. They deserved to know why their system was failing them. We took that step because we recognised a hard truth: too many families had been ignored for too long. Confidence in the system had broken down. We listened to the mothers, the fathers, the partners and the children who had lost their loved ones. The system was indeed broken, and the royal commission confirmed exactly what those families had been saying. It made clear that if we want lasting reform, if we want to stop these tragedies from happening, we cannot trust departments to mark their own homework.”
“Our veterans matter. This seems obvious, but it is a fact too often forgotten here as the years progress and the memories of war fade. These bills before the House, the Defence and Veterans' Service Commissioner Bill 2025 and the Defence and Veterans' Service Commissioner (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2025, are about setting up a permanent independent watchdog to look after our veterans—and what's more important than that? The coalition supports this objective wholeheartedly, and I support it. Veterans have fought for us so we can live in the best country in the world, and some have given the ultimate sacrifice for that. But we have to be honest about the history, and we must be honest about who has truly stood up for veterans when it mattered.”
“It is causing parents to leave the workforce, and there are regional staff shortages. Beyond this, fresh analysis from the Parliamentary Library paints a devastating picture. In September 2025 more than 3,624 childcare services were charged above the fee cap, almost double the June 2022 figure of 1,889 services. The government's hourly rate cap sits at $14.63, yet more than 37 per cent of services are forced to charge more.”
“They are vital community hubs serving the bush. Yet under this government they are forced to pass on soaring costs. While inflation sits at about 3.8 per cent, costs for non-government schools have surged by 5.4 per cent. Why? It is because, unlike government schools, where taxpayers absorb the blow, independent schools must survive the market. When energy prices skyrocket, when insurance premiums rise and when this government piles on red tape, these schools have no choice but to ask families to pay more. Parents are ultimately paying the price for Labor's inflation. Families in regional Australia are making immense sacrifices to educate their children, yet they are being punished by a government that offers no transparency or relief. A 2022 Mitchell Institute study confirmed this.”
“Well, fantastic if you live in Kadina, Quorn or Kimba, but what about those in Port Broughton, Crystal Brook, Tumby Bay, Cummins, Wudinna and Wilmington? There are so many communities in the electorate of Grey where there are gaps in child care. I'd like to thank the Regional Childcare Desert Advocacy Project and the 23 councils that are advocating for early childhood education in your communities. Regional families in my electorate are being absolutely crushed by this Labor government's cost-of-living crisis. The financial pain isn't limited to just power bills, grocery bills, health costs and insurance premiums. The pain is being felt in the education of our children, from our littlest learners right through to our school leavers. The lack of support for our regional independent schools is tangible. These are not elite institutions.”
“If you want to be a doctor, if you want to be an engineer—if you want to do anything other than nursing—you've got to go to Adelaide. We have one brilliant tertiary site in Whyalla, in the electorate of Grey, but of course Whyalla is a five-hour drive from Ceduna; it's a six-hour drive from Coober Pedy. Again, you've got to go to Adelaide for an education. That's why Grey has the fourth-lowest tertiary education outcomes in the entire country. Getting back to child care, you might not know that it's state election time in South Australia. I should call Premier Malinauskas the mayor of Adelaide, because, if you do live outside of Adelaide, you appreciate that you live in the state of Adelaide, not the state of South Australia. We have the worst access to child care, and he's been out spruiking new centres.”
“There's also a huge gap in early childhood education in the regions. Again, the electorate of Grey has the worst access to child care in the entire country. We are at 150 out of 150. Only around two-thirds of families have access to early childhood education, to child care. The reality is that with Labor's inflation-driven cost-of-living crisis you need two incomes to raise a family. So if you're in a small town and you're a small-business owner and you're trying to grow your business, it is very difficult—near on impossible—to attract young people to your community. Indeed, young people leave because there is no access to child care and it forces a parent to stay at home. It is the same with tertiary education.”
“We're here talking about Labor's motion on the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement. Well, I think it should be called the 'Better and Fairer Schools Agreement for Our Cities'. As the member for Monash rightly pointed out earlier, your postcode does impact your education outcomes, and that's felt no more than in country and outback South Australia. In the electorate of Grey I have the most primary, middle and senior schools in the entire country—146 schools, to be exact. I'd like to thank the hundreds of teachers and community volunteers who support those schools each and every day. The school isn't just the teachers and the students that make it. It's the bus driver, it's those who run the canteen, it's those who take the kids to sports games on the weekend. So thank you for all that you do for your local communities.”
“We need mobile phone towers in places like Whitwarta or Halbury, and across regional South Australia—not promises, not 'eventually', but now.”
“Now they pay another $120 a month for Starlink. When the fires were out, Lucas walked inside and his phone exploded with delayed messages arriving at 11 pm—five hours after the emergency. Five hours may as well have been five years. Why is this? The facts are stark. Over nine years of the coalition government, 54 mobile phone towers were put in the electorate of Grey; under this Labor government, zero. They've made promises, but there has been little action. Telcos switched off 3G despite promising no degradation in service. However, that has proven to be not true, and now they are holding back on infrastructure and banking on satellites. But satellites won't save Lucas's home when the fire breaks out. His neighbour down the road could—if Lucas could make a call. Regional Australians deserve what metropolitan residents take for granted.”
“So he tried to call his neighbours, tried to call the CFS, then threw his phone in the ute and started fighting the fire alone. His neighbours helped only because they happened to drive by, saw some smoke in the rear-view mirror and turned around. They grabbed the fire unit and they came back. This is what neighbours do for each other in the country. Lucas went through 3,000 litres of water before help arrived. Forty firefighters on 10 trucks finally showed up. The damage: 56 pine trees, his header, a baler and kilometres of fencing. A second fire was different only because someone was home with Starlink—a monthly subscription they now pay on top of phone bills just to make calls from their own home. Think about that reality—in 2026 a farmer pays Telstra $50 more per month than nine years ago, with worse service.”
“Grassfires are just a part of life on a broadacre farm, particularly in the last few years. Whether it's a failed bearing or some fine lentil dust getting in an exhaust, fires are just a part of farming life. However, on 5 December, Louie Bagshaw—or Lucas, for the Hansard watched a fire tear across his property near Weetulta on the Yorke Peninsula. A week later, it happened again. But this isn't about two fires. This is about what happened when Lucas tried to call for help. Nothing. No signal. No connection. No way to alert his neighbours. Your first thought is triple zero, but that's not our reality in country South Australia. Lucas told me straight: you do not rely on triple zero in the country. He had a better chance of saving his home by ringing the CFS member down the road, or his neighbour, than waiting for emergency services.”
“Telstra now claims that this structure is merely a network facility for a tower nine kilometres away in Pekina. You cannot explain technicalities to a community that can see the infrastructure with their own eyes but cannot make a call. The botched 3G switch-off has only compounded the misery. Residents report that since the transition to 4G and 5G, coverage has deteriorated. Calls are garbled and families are forced to rely on wi-fi calls, making calls within their own homes. This incompetence is strangling local enterprise. Take Tarcowie Transport, run by Joe and his partner, Taylor. Joe moves around a hundred loads in a season. He needs to coordinate with clients and contractors constantly, yet, in most paddocks, there is no service. If you break down, you're stranded—or you've still got that UHF radio.”
“In these tragic circumstances, the limited mobile reception was cited as a major concern for emergency response. This is the brutal reality of the digital divide. When seconds count, Tarcowie residents are left searching for a signal. Residents are forced to walk outside in all weather or travel to the local golf club, one of the few spots with a booster, just to make a simple phone call. This is undignified, unsafe and, frankly, not acceptable. What makes the situation truly bitter for the community is the presence of what I can only describe as a ghost town—a Telstra facility standing just five kilometres out of town, installed nearly two years ago. Residents watched it go up believing help was on the way, yet the transmitter has never been switched on.”
“Think about that: a heatwave, a fire threat and a total communications blackout. Then there is Tarcowie in the mid-north of my electorate, a productive farming district where the silence of the phone lines is deafening and where the lack of connectivity is no longer just an inconvenience; it is a genuine threat to livelihoods. This issue is so significant that the Stock Journal has written an entire story, an expose, on this town and its troubling communications issues. The residents of Tarcowie are not in the outback; they're in a vital agricultural corridor. As local farmer Noreen Arthur puts it: 'We're not in the outback, but you wouldn't know it by the phone service.' The situation in Tarcowie is dire. In 2024 alone, three residents died while working or living alone in the district.”
“He was saved because he used a UHF radio and someone heard his call for help. I don't think anyone from Labor or the Greens knows what a UHF is, yet it has been a lifesaver for me and my family on our farm and for so many others in rural, regional and remote South Australia. And then there are seniors. In Orroroo I spoke with David. His wife was forced to buy a new phone because her two-year-old Samsung could no longer access triple zero after the shutdown. They are pensioners. They can't just nip out and drop a thousand bucks on a new phone. In Streaky Bay, Rebecca has been calling because the internet and mobile coverage for the whole town just dropped out for three days during a severe heatwave with fire warnings. Imagine if the internet dropped out here in Parliament House for three days!”
“That's Labor's connected Australia for you. Then there's my good friend Lucas Bagshaw. Lucas faced every country person's nightmare this past harvest: a fire on his property. He grabbed his phone to call for help—nothing, no signal. He knew better than to rely on triple zero because in regional SA it is a roll of the dice. Lucas went through 3,000 litres of water before his neighbours, who only saw the smoke by luck, arrived to help. They lost a header—headers these days cost about $1.8 million—a baler and kilometres of fencing. If that signal had been there, the CFS could have been there sooner, and they might not have lost the header, the baler and the fencing. I also think of Keith, a farmer from the mid-north who recently crashed his quad bike. He lay there for hours. He wasn't saved by 4G or a government safeguard.”
“It's the amount of money ripped out of rural and outback roads, particularly in outback South Australia. The lack of access to GP services, child care and aged care in regional SA is terrible. We have the worst health outcomes in the state. We have the lowest access to child care in the state. If you're ageing, you can't age in your local aged-care home; you've got to move hours away. And, of course, there are the telcos, with 54 towers in nine years versus zero in four years. The numbers speak for themselves. Take Craig, a farmer on the Eyre Peninsula. Craig is trying to run a livestock business. He told me he had to give up ordering transport to move loads of sheep because he simply cannot get a signal. Imagine trying to run a farming business in 2026 where you can't even call a truckie to pick up your stock!”
“The minister promised equivalent coverage. Well, I invite the minister to come to a Toyota. Come to Halbury. Come to the blackspot areas of my electorate and tell farmers that the silence on their handsets is equivalent. While Labor pat themselves on the back for increasing fines, my constituents are paying—surprise, surprise—another Labor tax. But, this time, the tax isn't coming from the ATO. It is a tax because the 4G rollout wasn't finished before 3G was pulled. This means families are forced to fork out thousands for Starlink or expensive boosters just to get the basic signal they used to have for free. This is a tax based on postcode, yet our PM said he would govern for all Australians. They talk a big game on regional, rural and remote Australia, but their actions are the absolute opposite.”
“While the coalition supports these safeguards, I cannot stand here and just blindly congratulate this Albanese Labor government. It is one thing to tinker with the fine print in a comfortable office; it is quite another to actually provide service to the people in the mid-north, on the west coast, in the outback and, of course, for the Yorke Peninsula, who are having significant issues right now. Watching the Labor Party manage a telecommunications rollout is a bit like watching a toddler baking a cake. There's a lot of huffing and puffing, but usually they just end up making a mess and expecting someone else to clean it up. They talk a big game about consumer protection in the bill, yet they've overseen the most botched, chaotic and disastrous transition in our history: the 3G shutdown across rural and regional Australia.”
“By raising the maximum fines to $10 million or basing them on a percentage of turnover, we are finally giving the regulator a set of teeth. In the electorate of Grey, which covers over 92 per cent of South Australia, these rules matter. In regional areas, telecommunications aren't a luxury for scrolling through Instagram; they are an essential service. They are the difference between a business surviving or folding. Sometimes, they are the difference between life and death. Why is this? I'll give you some recent examples. Under the previous coalition government, in the electorate of Grey, 54 mobile cell phone towers were built and installed. Guess how many were installed in the last four years? Zero. Nada. Nothing. Access to telcos is getting worse and worse.”
“For too long the regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, ACMA, has been expected to police the playground wearing a blindfold. There are over 1,500 providers currently operating in Australia. ACMA needs to know who they are and what they are doing. At the core of this bill is the creation of a formal registration process. If you want to provide telecommunications services in this country, you must apply to ACMA. Much like in the energy sector, if a provider poses a risk to the public or fails to meet their obligations, the regulator will finally have the power to pull the plug on their licence. We're also seeing a much-needed hike in penalties. For the big players, a small fine is just the cost of doing business.”
“Thanks to the previous speaker for their contribution, but I must say we are not comparing apples with apples. It's well and good to put rules and regulations around existing services, but what happens when those services are getting worse or that service doesn't exist at all? That is the reality faced by too many rural, regional and remote Australians. Let me be clear from the outset: the coalition supports this bill. Frankly, it is overdue. It introduces commonsense changes to an act that has been lagging behind a rapidly evolving market. 'Commonsense' is not a word I would typically use to describe this Labor government, which is unfortunate for the Australian people and for the Aussie battler. This bill is about visibility, accountability and, importantly, protection.”
“The debt will reach $1 trillion in the coming months and $1.2 trillion by the next election. This is out of control. Like everyone else, the Treasurer must spend within his means.”
“The average mortgage holder is paying around $21,000 a year more in interest than they were under the coalition—$21,000! And the rates have risen yet again. That is money stripped away from the family budget. Why is this happening? Because inflation is being driven by government spending. Labor's spending is the problem, and it's clear as day. Spending is an addiction. Spending is now at its highest levels outside of a recession in 40 years. Former head of the RBA Philip Lowe made it clear that inflation lasted longer in Australia because of Labor's spending addiction. We all know that when Labor spends, Australians pay. The Treasurer's thrown out the rule book. He has given himself a credit card with no limit—borrow, borrow, spend, spend. In the last three years Labor has added $100 billion to national debt.”
“The last figures from the ABS confirm what every Australian knows, what Graham from Port Augusta knows, and that is that under Labor the cost of living is totally out of control. This is just not theory or economic modelling. This is the weekly shop. This is the power bill. This is the rent and the mortgage. It is happening. It is real. Inflation rose 3.8 per cent in December, accelerating over Christmas at the worst possible time for families. Let's take another look at the run sheet, at the facts and the figures. Insurance is up 38 per cent. Energy prices are up 39 per cent. Rent has climbed 22 per cent. Health costs are up 18 per cent. Education is up 17 per cent. Food is up 16 per cent. These are the things people need to survive, but the pain does not stop there.”
“He is running the economy with absolutely no plan to fix the patient. But we wouldn't be surprised, really. After all, he has no academic credentials. He does, however, have a PhD in political science, a PhD in spin. Amongst the many complaints my office receives daily about inflation and rising costs, I was recently contacted by John McGahan, a retail worker from Port Augusta. John acknowledges that he was lucky to grow up in a time when things were affordable, but he can see things are now totally out of control. John rang my office to let me know about his deep concern he has for his niece and nephew, who he fears will never be able to afford their own home thanks to the spiralling cost of living under this government.”
“In South Australia, we reached a milestone last year. If you divide the debt of both the federal government and the state government by the workforce in South Australia, it is over $100,000 per worker and increasing. Your children and your grandchildren are going to be paying off that debt. That is what these big numbers mean. We have gone from 24 to 27 per cent of government spending as a percentage of GDP. Again, that is big government territory. The Treasurer likes to present himself as a specialist, an expert in diagnosing the nation's finances with precision. He wants us to trust his credentials. But if you went to the doctor who ignored your symptoms, refused to make you a treatment plan and told you everything was fine while your fever spiked and kept rising, you'd be worried. That is exactly what we have in this Treasurer.”
“As the member for Casey rightly pointed out earlier, the first steps to solving a problem is to recognise that you have one. Indeed, this government do not recognise a problem that is right in their faces. Inflation is rampant. It has increased by 3.8 per cent just recently. Again, we see another interest rate rise hurting families, hurting small business, crushing our economy. Government spending right now is the highest it has been in 40 years outside of the pandemic. It is a big-spending government. As the government gets bigger, we as a people become more dependent on said government and lose our freedoms. Now, if you have the unfortunate nature to live in either the great state of South Australia, as I do, or Victoria—let's look at the debt that we've carried in both of these states.”
“Kenneth, thank you for looking after the mid-north. From our emergency services, Mrs Sandra Gooch from Yorktown. Sandra was awarded Ambulance Service medal. Sadly, this year, we also include two outstanding men who are no longer with us. We honour the late Mr Walter Duncan from Clare, who received an OAM for his service to horticulture. And we remember the late Mr Archibald Woods from Stansbury, awarded an OAM for his service to the Yorke Peninsula. None of these people did the work for a medal. They did it because they were devoted to regional South Australia. To all our recipients: warm congratulations.”
“Today I'm honoured to congratulate the local everyday heroes recognised in the 2026 Australia Day Honours list in Grey. Ms Jennifer Holmes from Port Vincent. Jennifer has been appointed a Member of the Order of Australia. She has been recognised for her incredible work in community health. Mr Douglas Ahola from Risdon Park received the Medal of the Order of Australia for his service to the people of Port Pirie. Mr Bruce Green of Port Lincoln received an OAM for his service to the local government as mayor and for his community work. Bruce, thank you for your leadership. Mr Douglas Warmington of Moonta Bay, congratulations on your OAM. You have served your local community proudly. We also celebrate Mr Kenneth Warnes from Owen. Kenneth received an OAM for his service to conservation and to the district of Owen.”
“Health costs are up 18 per cent. Education is up 17 per cent, and food is up 16 per cent. These aren't luxuries. These are the essentials. But bartender Jim says, 'Don't worry about the mortgage; just grab another pint.' The reality is that this treasurer is watering down the drinks while charging top-shelf prices. Spending is at its highest level, outside of a recession, in nearly 40 years. Government spending has blown out from 24 per cent to 27 per cent of GDP under Labor. That is an addiction. Bartender Jim is drinking on the job, and it's on the taxpayers' tab. We support this bill because any relief is better than no relief. But let's not pretend that this is a solution. This is a mid-strength distraction. The Treasurer is shouting a round with one hand and pickpocketing the nation with the other.”
“Indeed, the impending container deposit scheme will also add massive costs. They're trying to solve a problem that does not exist. Industry estimates suggest that this will impose an additional cost of up to $100 million on the sector. This measure risks becoming a cost grab that further undermines the viability of wine businesses, particularly in regional South Australia. Wine producers have been forgotten by this government. They need targeted assistance packages and genuine accountability. While Labor is making a song and dance about saving a fraction of a cent on a schooner, business is hurting. But it isn't just business; let's look at the rest of the menu prices at this Labor pub, the Chook and Parrot. Inflation just recently hit 3.8 per cent. Insurance is up 38 per cent. Energy bills are up 38 per cent. Rent is up 22 per cent.”
“Last year, I wrote to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry about the crisis facing our wine industry. Small family owned operators are drowning under commercial pressure, regulatory failure and rising costs. Where is their support? Take Flinders Run, for example, in my electorate. They paid $14,000 to Wine Australia for their US market entry program. It was a disaster. It was poorly communicated and offered zero value, raising serious questions around how grower levies are spent. Additionally, while I welcome the government's response to the Emerson review and the decision to progress a mandatory code of conduct for wine grape purchasers, growers have been clear with me that regulatory reform alone will not address the market conditions facing this industry.”
“They don't even make a coin for that anymore. That is the extent of this so-called relief. It's enough to buy the Labor Party a headline, but it is not enough to buy a single peanut at the front bar. If this government were serious about alcohol excise reform, they would not be throwing us a 1c coin and asking for a round of applause. They would have the Treasury conducting a comprehensive review of the entire alcohol excise system. Instead, we get a patchwork fix. It doesn't help those buying a bottle of wine. It doesn't help those winemakers either. In fact, it doesn't help the wine industry at all. From the Lower Eyre Peninsula to the Clare Valley, Grey, beautiful Grey, is home to some of Australia's finest wine-growing regions. And, while Bartender Jim is focused on beers, the wine industry needs help.”
“As I said before, it is our biggest export market. And, of course, South Australia has the famous Coopers. Beer is a regional industry, and it must be supported. But, while we are happy to take the discount, let's be honest about the service we are getting from this government and at Jim and Albo's pub. Just on that pub, I wonder what it should be called—maybe the 'Slug and Lettuce' or perhaps the 'Chook and Parrot'. Anyway, I can't help but look at the Treasurer and see a man who has missed his calling. He's running the economy like a confused bartender. Bartender Jim is behind the tap. He waves at you with a big smile. He says: 'Mate, good news! This round is on me. I'm freezing the tax on that schooner.' And you think: 'Beauty! Finally a win.' But then you look at the change he hands you. It's less than 1c per pint.”
“At that point in time, we already had the most expensive cigarettes in the world, and he hiked up the excise on tobacco yet again. And I can quote what I and my friends said. We said at the time that all he's going to do is create a black market. Well, indeed, that's exactly what happened. We're losing billions of dollars a year in excise, smoking rates are up, and illegal tobacco crime is up as well. I'm concerned that we're going to see the same with alcohol, particularly in my community in regional Australia. Beer is a regional industry. I'm a farmer. We grow a lot of barley, particularly malting barley, which goes into the beer that we drink. We export barley. We export malt all over the world. South Australia's biggest export commodities are wheat, barley and lentils. They go to India, Indonesia and China.”
“Let me start by saying quite clearly that the Liberal Party supports the freeze on the beer excise indexation. Personally, I support reducing excises, especially in our pubs and clubs, and so we welcome this relief for every Australian who enjoys a cold one. I know I certainly do. The small country towns that I represent—I represent the most in this place—rely on three things: the primary school, the footy club and of course the pub. And the pubs are hurting. We're seeing closures every other week. Eventually, the community shrivels up, and that town becomes a ghost town. That story is all too familiar in regional South Australia. In 2022, when this Labor government was elected, the Treasurer delivered his first budget.”
“The government is getting fat while the private sector—our farmers, our tradies and our small businesses—are starving. It is simple. The more the government spends, the higher your mortgage goes. The Treasurer won't take responsibility for this mess. If he can't take responsibility for the problem, he certainly cannot be trusted to fix it. For that, we need a different government.”
“If we swapped out one for the other, economists say that Labor's extra spending spree has the same impact on the economy as nine interest rate cuts. Think about that: if Labor had done the responsible thing, if they had acted like the disciplined farmers I represent in regional SA and showed restraint, we could effectively be enjoying the benefits of nine rate cuts now. For the average mortgage holder, that is worth about $14,000 a year. That is $14,000 that should be in the pockets of Australian families, but it isn't, because Jim Chalmers couldn't say no to more borrowing and more spending. To go back to my farm analogy, he couldn't resist the new double-cab 70 series with a lift kit, a snorkel and a bull bar when really the old one was plenty good enough. Public spending is currently growing twice as fast as the rest of the economy.”