Federal Member for Nicholls, Sam Birrell MP, says Australia has been condemned to years of deficits by a budget that does nothing to dig Australia out of a productivity hole and instead provides a raft of unaffordable, ill-timed election sweeteners.

“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 years’ time, it does nothing to address the
financial strain being felt by so many households after 3 years of high inflation and interest rates
under Labor,” he said.

Mr Birrell said many of the new measures in the budget fall short of what is 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 this doesn’t address the real need which is 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,” he said.

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 is no focus
on regional roads, which are 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,” Mr Birrell
said.

“The Nationals in Coalition government will ensure regional Australia gets a fair share of funding.”