Peter Dutton promises to slash power bills, permanent migration and government spending in his pitch to become a “steady hand” prime minister.
Ruling out offering any further income tax breaks and promising to repeal Labor’s tax cuts, the opposition leader has set the stage for the federal election to be fought on which party can better address hip-pocket pain.
In his response to the federal budget, Mr Dutton promised to bring down power bills by pumping more gas into the energy grid and set up a domestic reserve for the east coast to protect against international price spikes.
“The only way to drive down power prices quickly is to ramp up domestic gas production,” he told parliament on Thursday night.
“Across the economy, it’s costing more to grow food, produce goods, and deliver services and those costs are passed on to Australian consumers.”
Gas will be added to the capacity investment scheme, which underwrites funds in renewable energy projects such as wind, solar and batteries, and $1 billion will be earmarked for a gas infrastructure fund to pay for pipelines and storage.
The opposition will also forgo $6 billion to slash the fuel excise by 25 cents a litre, making it about $14 cheaper for a tank for the average motorist, Mr Dutton said.
Nationals leader David Littleproud flagged extending the excise cut.
“We’ll review this at the end of 12 months and if there’s pain, we’ll take the necessary measures,” he said.
The coalition will set a target of 400,000 apprentices and provide small and medium businesses with $12,000 for the first two years to help them bring on more trainees.
Mr Dutton further pledged $50 million across four years for food charities to expand their services, including school breakfast programs, and $400 million for mental health.
Responding to the opposition leader’s speech, Labor frontbencher Jason Clare said the government had already secured six times more gas than Mr Dutton flagged would be in the reserve.
“To be frank, this is just a distraction from his nuclear policy, which is now about as popular as a fart in an elevator,” Mr Clare said.
Mr Dutton put $46 billion of Labor’s measures on the chopping block to make up the cash and cut spending to lower inflation, including a housing investment fund, renewable energy fund and critical mineral tax credits.
More than 40,000 public servants would be axed to save a projected $7 billion, but frontline services would not be affected, he said.
Mr Clare chided Mr Dutton for failing to detail where hundreds of billions of dollars would come from to pay for his nuclear power plants.
“He’ll cut, and you’ll pay, and you deserve to know before you vote what he’s going to cut,” he said.
“It was all aggro and no answers.”
Mr Dutton also made community safety a focal point of his speech, saying he would toughen bail laws for domestic violence offenders and work with states and territories to introduce uniform knife laws.
The coalition spent the final parliament sitting day before a federal election peppering the government with questions about cost of living and delayed tax cuts.
Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor pledged to repeal legislated tax cuts that would save taxpayers up to $268 in 2026/27 and up to $536 every financial year after as Mr Dutton called it “a shameless election vote-buying exercise”.
Labor’s “so-called tax cut top-up is simply a tax cut cop out”, Mr Dutton said, ruling out alternative income tax cuts at this election as being too expensive for a budget in deficit.
“I would love to introduce tax reform and tax cuts but the Labor Party has racked up what we now see in the budget papers of about $1.2 trillion of debt,” he told ABC TV after his speech.
“We have to be realistic and understand the constraints that we have.”
