Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury – Opinion Piece – The West Australian – Labor is a definite risk to all of Australia’s prosperity

Opinion

SENATOR DEAN SMITH SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR COMPETITION, CHARITIES AND TREASURY SENATOR FOR WESTERN AUSTRALIA OPINION PIECE – THE WEST AUSTRALIAN LABOR IS A DEFINITE RISK TO ALL OF AUSTRALIA’S PROSPERITY In the closing chapters of Parliament for 2024, the Albanese Labor Government prioritised its pursuit of short-term political gain and put in jeopardy the hard-earned savings of generations of Australians. The Future Fund— established as a safeguard for our nation’s financial stability — is now being plundered to prop up a failing economic agenda, risking our future prosperity. This isn’t hyperbole. It’s the reality of a Government that has abandoned sound economic management for ideological gain. David Murray, the Future Fund’s first chairman, has raised the alarm, suggesting Labor’s changes to the investment mandate breach laws designed to protect the fund’s independence. “The act was carefully drafted to limit the Government’s ability to interfere,” Murray explained. Yet Labor is pressing ahead, exposing the fund to volatile, politically driven sectors like housing, renewable energy, and infrastructure. Treasurer Jim Chalmers insists these changes are lawful but refuses to release the legal advice that supposedly justifies them. Australians always deserve transparency — but never more so than when $230 billion of their savings is at stake. Without oversight, these changes look less like reform and more like a desperate raid on the nation’s nest egg to cover Labor’s economic blunders. Labor’s economic mismanagement isn’t confined to the Future Fund. After nearly three years in power, the Albanese Government has delivered Australians the weakest annual growth since 1991 — outside of the pandemic — with GDP per capita contracting for seven consecutive quarters. This is the longest household recession in half a century. Living standards have plummeted by 8.7 per cent — the largest fall on record. Mortgages are unaffordable for many, with interest payments tripling since the election. Productivity has collapsed by 6 per cent, a damning sign that points to a Government with the wrong priorities. Inflation remains stubbornly high, driven primarily by homegrown factors. While other advanced economies like the US and UK have begun to see interest rate relief, Australians are still struggling under the burden of rising costs. Core inflation sits at 3.5 per cent — higher than most advanced economies. These are not abstract figures; they’re the reason families are cutting back, businesses are closing, and farmers are scaling down operations. Energy costs are a prime example of Labor’s poor governance. Three years ago, Anthony Albanese promised Australians a $275 reduction in electricity bills. Today, power prices are up by over 30 per cent, with households paying as much as $1000 more annually. Labor’s “renewables-only” policy has saddled Australians with a projected $642 billion bill for transitioning to green energy, more than five times what was originally claimed. The instability caused by relying solely on renewables has left families and businesses footing the bill. Australians are being left in the dark, both literally and figuratively. Small businesses, the backbone of our economy, are buckling under the weight of soaring costs. Nearly 25,000 of them have become insolvent since Labor took office. Farmers, already dealing with surging fertiliser and feed prices, face energy costs that risk making it impossible to remain competitive. These failures have cascading effects across our economy, hitting everyone from consumers to exporters. The Albanese Government’s legislative blitz at the end of the 2024 parliamentary year is a reflection of their slapdash approach to their responsibilities. Sweeping changes to the Reserve Bank’s governance were rushed through, backed by Greens-aligned policies that prioritise climate goals over economic stability. This politicisation undermines the independence of one of Australia’s most trusted institutions and erodes confidence in its ability to serve the public. Even the Treasurer’s nominees to the new interest rate board have raised eyebrows. Labor’s focus on appointees aligned with its views over bipartisan experts risks further destabilising an already fragile economic landscape. Meanwhile, migration is the only thing propping up our economy. With one person arriving every 44 seconds, this surge masks a deeper economic malaise. It doesn’t address falling living standards, nor does it alleviate the rising costs of essentials like housing and energy. Instead, it covers up structural problems while failing to tackle the root causes of our economic challenges. Unlike Labor, the Coalition understands that the Future Fund is not a political tool but a safeguard for all Australians. We are committed to restoring fiscal discipline, fighting inflation, and securing Australia’s future. Our approach focuses on cutting Government waste, lowering taxes, and investing in reliable, low-emissions energy to reduce costs for families and businesses alike. Unlike the Government’s costly renewables-only plan, the Coalition’s balanced energy approach — including zero-emissions nuclear power — offers a cheaper, cleaner, and more consistent solution to the energy crisis. Our plan will save Australians up to $263 billion, delivering lower power bills, stronger businesses, and a more resilient economy. Labor’s half-baked economic policies are a betrayal of the trust placed in them to competently manage the national economy. Their mishandling of the Future Fund is just one example of a broader pattern of mismanagement that has left Australians worse off. Labor’s fiscal irresponsibility has always ended the same way — with higher taxes, mounting debt, and lower living standards. For Australians struggling to make ends meet, the Albanese Government offers nothing but excuses. Peter Costello, the architect of the Future Fund, put it plainly: Labor is turning the fund into a tool of Government policy, compromising its independence and purpose. This is not just bad policy; it is harming future generations. Our vision, on the other hand, is one of growth, stability, and opportunity — a nation where the Government plans not just for tomorrow, but for the decades ahead. The choice is clear. A future weighed down by Labor’s incompetence, or a Coalition Government led by Peter Dutton that is committed to restoring stability and prosperity for all.

Albo in line for a frosty reception – The West Australian

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Since being elected Prime Minister just over 18 months ago, Labor leader Anthony Albanese has tried hard to make a virtue of his visits to WA. Despite WA’s sweltering summers, when he touches down for his first visit in 2024, he should come prepared for a frosty reception. Having had a bitter taste of Labor, WA voters will now be looking for a “please explain” for his broken promises. Above all else, West Australians will want to know why Anthony Albanese and Labor have failed on their pre-election pledge to change Australia “for the better” by delivering cost-of-living relief, cheaper housing and mortgages, and wages growth. Far from making things better, WA families are ending 2023 in more financial pain than a year ago. Since Anthony Albanese made his pledge in Perth in May 2022, interest rates have risen on 12 occasions and are now higher than they have been for more than a decade. For WA families with an average mortgage of $493,000, that means having to find $3434 a month, or $41,208 a year, to meet their mortgage repayments. The monthly challenge of meeting these rising mortgage costs has been made even more difficult because of Labor’s failure to tackle inflation. Just this month the Western Australian Council of Social Service identified the “harsh realities” and “skyrocketing living costs” being experienced by families in its 2023 Cost of Living Report. The report found costs for a single-parent family had increased by $67.20 a week and exceeded basic living costs by just $1.40, making it more difficult for families to save or meet unexpected expenses, such as a car repair or replacing a washing machine or fridge. Two-parent families were now having to find an extra $84.94 a week, and age-pensioner incomes fell short of basic living costs with many experiencing a “substantial decline” in their financial wellbeing. Many WA families say they are now turning to the generosity of local charities for the first time to help make ends meet. Tragically, this cost-of-living stress is forcing some to take drastic steps. Fresh data has revealed shoplifting rates are the highest on record — in WA there were 7733 offences from July to September this year, an increase of 2306, or 42 per cent over the same period last year. Labor has also failed WA first-homebuyers. Data released by CoreLogic show that since January this year the median house price in Perth has surged by 11.1 per cent to $669,609, with further increases of up to 10 per cent predicted in 2024. The combination of rising interest rates and property prices is now putting first-home ownership beyond the reach of many young West Australians. And Labor has no good news for WA renters. Over the 12 months to September, Perth rents increased by almost 20 per cent and are expected to rise further in 2024, according to the Real Estate Institute of WA. For WA’s first-homebuyers and renters, the problem is exacerbated by Labor’s failure to properly plan and model a population policy that will benefit WA at a time when our population is growing faster than anywhere in Australia. And while costs have risen, the outlook for wages is bleak. The Reserve Bank of Australia recently updated estimates for wages growth to reveal that by December 2024, real wages will be 5.4 per cent lower than they were three years ago. Labor’s failure to tackle rising costs, coupled with sluggish wages growth, means Anthony Albanese’s economic leadership has made West Australians poorer. In May 2022, West Australians put their trust in Anthony Albanese’s pledge that life would be better for WA families under Labor. With a Federal election due after August, now is the time for WA voters to ask themselves how long they’ll be willing to pay the price of Labor’s cost-of-living crisis.

Nuclear resistance a COP out – The West Australian

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Every COP begins with a small degree of scepticism. For many critics, COP28 in Dubai was yet another UN talkfest, beginning with worldwide media coverage, conspicuous in its largesse, likely to fizzle out in disagreement and a sense of futility. Adding fuel to the scepticism was the fact that year’s host nation, the United Arab Emirates, a member of OPEC, and one of the world’s biggest petrostates. And this was the 28th COP since its inception in Berlin in 1995, and global emissions have never been higher than they are today. But those who disregarded the Dubai COP risked missing something important – indeed there is good reason to think that the most recent climate talks might yet be the most consequential in the quest for net zero. That’s because, in the words of Coalition energy spokesperson Ted O’Brien, COP28 was quickly becoming known as the “nuclear COP”. For proponents of nuclear, an emissions-free, reliable and cheap source of energy, the re-education of the world on the benefits of this technology has been a long and arduous process. It’s been made ever more difficult by the hysteria and disinformation propagated by organisations such as the Australian Greens. The symbol of the nuclear COP was the signing of an international pledge, which committed to trebling the supply of nuclear energy by 2050. The signatories to the pledge are among Australia’s closest allies, and include the US, the UK, Japan, and France. It should have been fantastic news for Australia. We’re already the world’s third biggest supplier of uranium and, on most estimates, still have more than any other country on earth beneath our feet. We’re a responsible international citizen and believe in reducing our carbon footprint. And while the world, as it stands, is not on track to meet the 1.5C limit established by the Paris Agreement, the international community is beginning to realise that nuclear energy could well be the solution. There are already 440 nuclear reactors across the globe, supplying 10 per cent of the world’s electricity. In 2022, nuclear energy was the biggest source of non-emitting electricity in the OECD. In the UAE, myself and a number of Coalition colleagues were lucky enough to visit the impressive Barakah nuclear power plant. Standing on what was previously a large swath of sand, there are now four nuclear reactors that supply 25 per cent of the country’s electricity. But most importantly, embracing nuclear could provide a path through the increasingly dark and confusing woods that is the Labor Government’s energy policy. Labor has talked a big game on energy, from “Rewiring the Nation”, “Powering the Nation” or, – wait for it – “Driving the Nation”. They’ve also dedicated about $25 billion to these dubious projects in the most recent Budget. The result? Power prices have risen more than 25 per cent in some east coast States in a year, record numbers of West Australians are on hardship plans to pay their energy bills, and frustrated farmers are discovering they don’t want their properties laden with thousands of kilometres of new transmission lines. Just this week, Sydney residents were told to avoid using essential appliances in order to avoid a blackout. All the while, Australia’s dependence on coal and gas, which still provides more than two-thirds of the country’s energy, remains relatively unchanged. Labor’s ideological fixation with wind, solar, and hydro, at the expense of any other technology, is harming Australian households and businesses, for little to no overall environmental benefit. The wider economy is beginning to sit up and take notice of this unsatisfactory state of affairs. Big business, which we discovered this year Labor has a soft spot for when it comes to public relations opportunities, is now beginning to embrace nuclear. This week, 70 of Australia’s most senior chief executives called for less ideology and more pragmatism in Australia’s energy transition. Like Ted O’Brien and the Coalition, they called for all technology options to be on the table, including nuclear. My message to Labor is that there is no shame in changing your position when the facts change. And the facts, overwhelmingly, show that developing countries that are serious about tackling emissions without harming their economy, are running towards nuclear energy.

Why reform would weaken WA – The West Australian

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Every few years in Canberra, the topic of electoral reform arises and momentarily grips the attention of certain parliamentarians and public servants. These reforms can usually be distilled into three categories: amending the legal age to vote, ending compulsory voting, and increasing the size of one or both houses of Parliament. It is the last of these — a proposed, whopping expansion of the House of Representatives — that is currently the talk of the capital. First off, don’t be fooled by the promise of better governance, or indeed better outcomes, courtesy of a bigger Federal Parliament. Among its negative effects, and there are many, is that the planned changes will diminish the strength of WA in the Commonwealth. Late last month, a Labor-dominated committee recommended doubling the Senate representation of the ACT and Northern Territory from two to four. More concerningly, the same report produced by the committee raised the prospect of increasing the number of Lower House seats to as many as 200 — the vast majority of which would be in Sydney, Melbourne and, to a lesser extent, Brisbane. At a time when the Albanese Government’s policies are inflicting significant economic harm on WA, plans to further weaken the voice of Australia’s underappreciated economic powerhouse should be fiercely resisted. The committee wants Parliament to explore the idea of a redesigned Lower House, which would see NSW and Victoria gain an extra 28 seats, and Queensland an extra 10. WA would acquire just five extra seats, and be left with a total of 20, compared to a possible 63 for NSW. Regional voices would also be muzzled by the committee’s designs. To reduce what is known as malapportionment, or the uneven number of voters across electorates, seats would be demarcated using arithmetic, rather than the Australian Electoral Commission’s “harmonic” method. This would invariably lead to more seats in dense capital cities and fewer in country Australia. It would mean a Federal Parliament more heavily laden with consultants, lawyers and public relations experts than farmers, small business owners and people on the land. Canberra would become even more insular, a place where the focus of Government is fixed unbendingly on the interests and views of East Coast capital cities. It won’t end well — especially for WA. Indeed, after 18 months of an under-delivering, image over substance Albanese Government, we can already see the consequences of a one-eyed Prime Minister with no interest in backing our State. Record, unmodeled immigration, one of the driving forces of high inflation, has made it all but impossible to rent a home, or indeed build one, in WA. The average rent for a Perth house hit a record $600 a week in November. Labor’s recent $300 million infrastructure cuts on major WA roads will undoubtedly hurt regional communities, as well as risk lives. This slashed infrastructure spend is also a GST cut by stealth — Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers’ way of making us pay for the fairer GST deal the Coalition secured for our State in 2017. Bad Labor policy and increased Labor funding to professional litigators like the Environmental Protection Agency is making life increasingly difficult for the State’s critically important resources sector — royalties from which pay for roads, schools, hospitals, and social securities like the NDIS. And it’s about to get even harder for this sector, with the Albanese Government’s recent industrial relations laws placing unsustainable demands on mining companies regarding labour hire. Investors are already beginning to look elsewhere. This is an unacceptable position, but the reality of life under Labor and its misguided priorities. The takeaway from all this is hard to ignore. Labor’s proposed electoral reforms are the latest in a long line of betrayals of WA. Rather than stand up and be accountable to voters in the West, whose circumstances he is rapidly making worse, Anthony Albanese would rather drown our voices out in Parliament. Then there are the economics of such a plan. Labor has increased the size of Canberra’s public service by 10 per cent since coming to power last year, adding more than $1 billion to the annual public sector wage bill. Economists are already saying this has had an impact on domestic inflation. The financial consequences of adding as many as 50 extra parliamentarians, and the staffing allocation that goes along with it, would be comparable. I’m fortunate to travel around the country frequently because of my work, with much of that travel in regional WA. Constituents, as you would expect, are never shy of sharing whatever criticisms they might have of the politics of the day and I have received many pieces of advice. But making Parliament bigger has never been one of them. Certainly not at the expense of WA’s representation in Canberra. And, if Anthony Albanese visited the Wheatbelt or East Kimberley — or even Perth’s northern suburbs — he’d know it.

Don’t fall for Mint gaslighting – The West Australian

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Whenever a history of Western Australia is written, you can be certain one word will loom heavy among the pages. That word is gold. Before the discovery of this precious metal in the 1890s, WA was a struggling outpost. The State’s sparse European population, for the most part, toiled thanklessly on the ancient lands they were ill-equipped to live and work on. Inspired by rumours of vast fortunes, more than 100,000 people migrated to the State in a decade at the end of the 19th century, iconic country towns like Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie exploded into life and the population of Perth tripled. Gold put WA on the prosperous trajectory it has enjoyed, apart from inevitable fluctuations, ever since. It’s no surprise the Perth Mint quickly grew in stature and significance to become an icon. Not only is it a beautiful and distinctively West Australian building that has been in the heart of the city for 120 years, it’s Australia’s official bullion mint and trades with central banks, sovereign wealth funds and private investors globally. It turns over more than $20 billion annually and employs more than 700 locals. One other thing. As the world’s only government-owned precious metals producer, it’s underwritten by you and I – the WA taxpayer. Given this unique arrangement, anything that affects the Mint affects us too, leaving us in a potentially vulnerable situation. That is why we should be deeply disturbed that the Mint could be facing fines totalling hundreds of millions, even a billion dollars from AUSTRAC for its failure to comply with anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing laws. As has been widely reported, the Mint has also been beset by gold doping issues, which, despite what the chair of the board said last week, has damaged its reputation. So much so, in fact, that international banks HSBC and JPMorgan stopped buying its gold. It was obvious that matters at the Mint, especially those concerning regulatory compliance with Commonwealth legislation, required investigation. That’s why a bipartisan group of colleagues and I established a Senate inquiry into compliance matters at the Mint – made all the more necessary after the minister responsible for the Mint, Bill Johnston, former premier Mark McGowan, and WA Labor used their parliamentary majority to stifle any investigation at State level. The Senate inquiry held its third public hearing last Friday. It was the first in Perth, and what we heard should be of concern to all West Australians. We were told that, despite holding multiple internal audits between 2018 and 2020, the Mint failed to detect the Euro Pacific Bank as a major client. Multiple media reports have established that this bank was under investigation in five different jurisdictions, including Australia, for its ties to money laundering. But it was allowed to hold more than $100 million in gold at the Mint. The head of the Mint’s audit and risk committee insisted he had no regrets over how internal audits had been conducted – despite admitting there were “inconsistencies” in their customer identification requirements – and the fact they failed to identify Euro Pacific Bank as a customer. Equally troubling was the seeming lack of due diligence shown by the chair of the board, Sam Walsh, who was appointed at the beginning of 2019 by Mark McGowan specifically to improve governance and compliance standards. It was surprising that, in light of this directive, Mr Walsh failed to familiarise himself with any of the Mint’s biggest international clients. Here it is worth noting that, according to AUSTRAC’s evidence on Friday, know-your-customer requirements are the “cornerstone” of Australia’s anti-money laundering laws. AUSTRAC also told the inquiry it was “incredibly important that any reporting entity knows and understands the customer” and has “ongoing due diligence” of their customers. Mr Johnston also appeared before the inquiry. He insisted we had accused the Mint of money laundering “without a shred of evidence”. To be very clear, the inquiry’s focus is on the Mint’s compliance with Commonwealth legislation – with no suggestion at any point the Mint had engaged in this activity. The reality is that suits Mr Johnson to focus on money laundering as a distraction from the genuine concern, which is that, for a time, the Mint was not in regulatory compliance. Whenever the State Opposition tried to get a parliamentary inquiry up into the Mint, Mark McGowan and Bill Johnston have dismissed their concerns as irrelevant and baseless. Mr Johnston said so again last Friday. But we know from their own actions, in Mark McGowan’s case as far back as 2019, that they held grave concerns over the conduct of the Mint. Why else did the former premier appoint Mr Walsh to clean up the Mint’s act in the first place? There’s a word for this kind of behaviour, assuring WA it’s business as usual, and it’s called gaslighting. That includes shrugging off any shortcomings – past or present. WA Labor could, and should, hold a parliamentary inquiry into this immediately, as the State Opposition has been calling for. We owe it to our history, our modern-day gold producers, our international reputation and the hundreds of West Australians it employs, to make sure the Mint is the very best it can be. Until it does, the Senate inquiry will continue to do its work and ask the questions the Cook Government won’t.

PM’s desire to create a legacy has left our country fractured

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The resounding No vote in Saturday’s referendum is not cause for celebration. This applies not only to those who voted and campaigned for the Voice, but for the majority such as myself who voted No. Sadly, for many Australians, 2023 has been the year where families, friends, and colleagues were pulled apart by the opposing sides of a bitter debate. And while the country dusts itself off, it would be naive to pretend that this separation will not be a long one, or in some cases even permanent. This concern for the wellbeing of our nation – comprised as it is of the families, friendship groups, and workplaces where this debate has taken place just as forcefully as on television and in the newspapers – was at the heart of Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s warning that this was a referendum that had already divided Australians. But Anthony Albanese, pumped up by a narrow circle of advisers and advocates, and desperate for his own Wattie Creek or Redfern moment, ploughed on with Saturday’s vote regardless. In doing so, he fractured Australia. Despite claiming the referendum was about an “idea” and not an “individual”, it was the Prime Minister whose actions led directly to this point. It was Anthony Albanese who alienated any chance of the referendum’s success by refusing to hold a constitutional convention – a significant break from precedent. It was Anthony Albanese whose hand-picked referendum advisory council contained activists whose divisive agenda made a proposal the public could embrace impossible. It was Anthony Albanese who refused to disclose details about how the Voice would work, including information as basic as the extent of its powers and composition. Those wishing to appropriately inform themselves were denigrated as “fearmongers”. Taking advantage of the nationwide support for constitutional recognition and closing the gap, the Prime Minister politicised a universal sentiment by insisting that the only road to these goals was through his rushed and secretive proposal. The rejection of Labor’s Voice was particularly emphatic in WA. Only two of the State’s 15 Federal electorates voted Yes, and one of those – Curtin – could return a final vote of No as the counting of postal votes is finalised. Nor were Indigenous communities unanimous in their support for the Voice. The Pilbara, Kununurra and Derby, where Indigenous disadvantage is at its most acute, voted in line with the national trend. These results should give us hope that support for a colourblind Constitution is felt across the country, irrespective or origin or ethnicity. I said October 14 was no cause for celebration for No voters. It is, nonetheless, a source of relief. It is a relief for those who never wavered in their conviction that the Australian people possess a collective judgment based on fairness and common sense. It is a relief that, after a campaign funded by the country’s biggest companies, supported by public broadcasters, major sporting codes and universities, the spirit of independence and a scepticism of authority remain alive among Australians. It is a relief for those who, recognising the Australian Constitution as the bedrock of the free and stable country we have inherited, know it cannot be bought, or altered on the basis of a vibe. Finally, it is a relief for those who believed that, after quietly shaping our country’s fortunes for more than a century, the Constitution can continue to do so free from the shadow of racial division. Now the work begins. As Peter Dutton said this week, the Coalition remains committed to a royal commission into child sexual abuse in Indigenous communities, and an audit into spending on Indigenous programs. My Coalition colleagues and I also remain committed to the constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. But we believe this can, and will, be done in a way that unifies the country and affirms our civic equality. As I said in my speech to the Senate opposing the Voice back in June: There is no shame in defeating a bad idea but only if there is a resolution to soldier on and find a better way, a way born from genuine co-operation and that will enjoy the widest possible community endorsement. It is a promise I and my colleagues have every intention on following through with.

WA Labor’s claims about State’s GST just an election scare – The West Australian

Opinion

Scottish king Robert the Bruce is thought to have used the phrase “if at first you don’t succeed try, try and try again”. It seems Premier Mark McGowan and Federal Labor’s shadow assistant minister for WA, Patrick Gorman, have taken inspiration from this historic battle cry, as they conspire to trick West Australians into believing we will be ripped-off on the GST. Read the full article here >