Angus Taylor says the Australian government needs to focus on growing the economy

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor spoke to David Speers on ABC Insiders this morning about the upcoming budget. He says the government is far from pushing inflation down and that the focus needs to be on enabling the economy to grow at a faster rate than spending.

Transcript

00:00 The key thing is to get those fiscal rules back in place.

00:06 And they have been in place, it's really important to emphasise this, they have been in place

00:10 since Peter Costello.

00:11 It's only the current Labor government that took them out and they did it.

00:16 Because they love to spend at exactly the time when we need restraint because if Australian

00:22 households are struggling with their budgets and showing restraint in their budgets, it's

00:27 time for the Australian Government to show restraint.

00:29 Let's talk about restraint then.

00:30 Yesterday the government announced more than $11 billion new housing funding.

00:35 The Coalition criticised it because it had no new money.

00:38 Does the Coalition want to spend more?

00:40 No, the point here is that the government committed or promised there would be 1.2 million

00:45 houses being built.

00:49 There is nothing in any of what was announced yesterday that tells us we're going to get

00:53 any closer to that target.

00:54 And their own National Housing Supply Council has said they're going to fall short of a

00:59 million at best.

01:00 So should they spend more?

01:01 Many commentators say no, they should just get back to basics.

01:03 Here's the point.

01:04 If you want more manufacturing in Australia, which we all want, if you want more housing

01:09 in Australia, you've got to get back to basics.

01:12 So what are the basics that you've got to get right?

01:14 You've got to get energy policy right.

01:16 You've got to make sure there's more supply coming into the market to put downward pressure

01:21 on prices.

01:22 You've got to make sure you get your industrial relations right, David, which ensures that

01:26 we've got productive, competitive workplaces, which are good for both employees and employers.

01:34 You've got to make sure that government's not getting in the way, you're not over-regulating

01:37 things.

01:38 You're getting approvals done, not blocking approvals.

01:40 These are the basics.

01:41 If you don't get the basics right, you try to veneer over it with loads of government

01:46 spending and it fails.

01:48 On defence, the Shadow Defence Minister Andrew Hastie says the Coalition will spend more

01:52 than Labor.

01:53 Is that right?

01:54 Well, I'll make the historical observation that Coalition governments have always been

01:57 able to stay within those fiscal rules that I just described and at the same time deliver

02:03 a strong outcome for defence.

02:06 And that's something that we need going into the future.

02:08 There's no question about that.

02:10 Look, the geopolitics we're facing right now, there's no doubt, they're very different from

02:15 even a few short years ago.

02:16 So you will spend more?

02:17 We'll make sure defence gets the capability and resources it needs.

02:21 We're deeply concerned about whether that's going on.

02:23 That's a little bit short of what Andrew Hastie is saying.

02:25 Well, I'm not going to give you the election budget details now.

02:33 What I'm going to say is that Coalition governments have always found ways to make sure defence

02:38 gets what it needs and there's no time when that's more important than now.

02:42 The question for the Australian people is who do you trust to defend Australia?

02:45 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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