“This is a budget for the upcoming election, not for Australia’s future,” Mr Birrell said.
“The tax cut amounts to 70 cents a day delivered in a year’s time, it does nothing to address the financial strain being felt by so many households after three years of high inflation and interest rates under Labor.”
Mr Birrell said many of the new measures in the budget fell short of what was needed.
The government will boost funding for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission by $38.8 million to crack down on misleading and deceptive pricing practices and unconscionable conduct in the supermarket and retail sector, but Mr Birrell said this did not address the real need, which was to provide a disincentive to that conduct.
“Our policy, including additional powers, including divestiture to constrain the market power of supermarkets, provides a real solution for food producers and consumers,” Mr Birrell said.
“An opportunity has been missed to reduce the regulatory burden on small business and get the engine room of the Australian economy running strongly again.
“Instead, this budget confirms there are deficits as far as the eye can see — and inflation is going to stay higher for longer under Labor.”
Mr Birrell said $20 million to support Australian producers through the Buy Australian Campaign was a pittance given the challenges already posed by overseas competitors and the threat to global markets from tariffs.
“This is the same government that tried to get our growers to pay for the biosecurity risk posed by their competitors’ imported products,” Mr Birrell said.
“The budget also contains unstated amounts for more water buybacks in the Murray-Darling Basin, which is a further threat to our competitiveness.”
On roads, Mr Birrell said $1 billion for a “blitz” in Victoria was too little, too late, and there was no focus on regional roads, which were in the worst condition and should be the driver of productivity.
“Our roads are crumbling, and while a billion dollars sounds a lot it looks like being spent in metro areas and won’t go far enough,” Mr Birrell said.
“Labor has failed to fund regional infrastructure and this budget delivers more cuts, with no new funding for the Stronger Communities program, Local Roads and Community Infrastructure program, Growing Regions program and the Regional Precincts and Partnership program.
“These programs are critical to building community infrastructure in regional Australia.
“The Nationals in coalition government will ensure regional Australia gets a fair share of funding.”
