Peter Dutton: Economic Address to the Menzies Research Centre
The Leader of the opposition outlines his vision for australia in a keynote address to the menzies research centre.
THE ECHOES OF HISTORY
It gives me immense pleasure and pride to deliver this speech today at the MRC, 30 years after Opposition Leader, John Howard, delivered the inaugural presentation to the Centre.
In his speech, John spoke of many issues – not just economic.
He spoke of national identity; the role and responsibilities of our institutions, including Parliament and the Constitution itself; and following the Keating era, the need to rebuild trust in Government.
He spoke of the Liberal traditions – invoking, of course, part of the vision Menzies had for our party and our great country.
John spoke of the Liberal commitment to the environment and to Indigenous affairs, particularly following the Mabo judgment.
While John Howard was a successful solicitor, he was shaped at a much younger age by his small business heritage and his fascination with Australian society.
His mind developed with an abiding respect and detailed knowledge of our history, our allies, our trials and tribulations as a nation, and our stoic national character.
It was a start in life which served him well as Prime Minister, and in turn, our country.
Australians were exhausted by the end of the Keating era in 1996.
After 13 years, the period of government which had commenced under Hawke in 1983 had cost many families their businesses and with it their dignity.
Homes were sold up.
And for many, the Keating social experiment rubbed salt in the wounds and created a period of confusion.
Confusion because people saw their Prime Minister estranged from – and in many debates at odds with – their own priorities and their world view.
And so it is today.
In this speech I want to focus on the economy and the contemporary damage done by this generation of Labor parliamentarians.
In a short parliamentary term of only three years, of course every day matters.
And yet, the Prime Minister used the first 16 months of this term obsessed with the Voice, completely distracted, and disinterested in the economic settings needed to inoculate against obvious domestic and international inflationary pressures.
The Voice is an interesting study and gives an insight into the priorities and the approach of Prime Minister Albanese which have pervaded his approach to governing in many areas of public policy and endeavour, including national security policy.
The alarm bells should have been ringing loudly at the time when the approach the Prime Minister was taking to decision making and his inability to effectively communicate and make necessary decisions in the national interest during that debate.
As we approach the dying days of this parliamentary term, we are reminded of the parallels with the period leading to the election of the Howard Government.
While the Albanese Government isn’t a tired 13-year-old Government, it certainly has that feel to it.
This has been a long list of wrong priorities, of missed opportunities, and derogation of responsibility – particularly on the economic, national security and social cohesion fronts.
Most egregiously, many of the decisions taken in these areas which have caused significant national harm can be traced back to the political motivation of the Voice.
It’s all been for political advantage – this whole term of government.
That will change if we are given the honour of forming a government in a few short months.
Our motivation will start with what is in our national interest.
It’s been in our national interest to provide support to a thriving economy, to different elements of the economy, but it’s not been in our national interest to allow the unions unfettered opportunity to advance in workplaces against the will of employers and employees alike.
And it has not been in our national interest to allow anti-Semitism to flourish, simply because the Prime Minister sees political advantage in staying effectively mute – at least in the opening months – on the topic.
The Jewish community has been treated with disdain.
In my lifetime, I’ve never seen an element of society ostracised in such a way.
Tragically, anti-Semitism will always lurk just beneath the surface.
But what we’ve seen escalate over the last 15 months is truly horrific and unsettling to all Australians.
This is not a problem just for the Jewish community – it has triggered a reflection on our national character.
How could a Prime Minister sit idly by for 15 months and not have an instinct to halt the racist momentum?
Ladies and gentlemen, this context should be remembered as I delve into a discussion on our economy.
AUSTRALIA’S ECONOMY TODAY
Over the last two-and-a-half years, I’ve had the privilege to meet many Australians from all walks of life across this wonderful country.
I’ve listened to mums and dads, to small business and manufacturing owners, to farmers and fishers, to blue and white-collar workers.
And regardless of whether they live in our city suburbs, regional towns, or coastal communities, Australians are hurting due to Labor’s cost-of-living crisis.
Many Australians are working extra shifts – or taking on additional jobs – simply to make ends meet.
Tellingly, the number of Australians working a second, a third, or even a fourth job has risen by 130,000 during the Albanese Government’s term – and reached a record level.
Many parents who want to stay home and care for their children have had no choice but to return to work to afford their rent or mortgage.
With 12 cash rate rises under Labor, families with a typical mortgage today have been forced to pay up to an additional $50,000 in interest, in after tax dollars.
Many pensioners are having to choose between eating or air conditioning – because they simply can’t afford to pay for both.
Indeed, the number of Australians on electricity hardship plans has increased by 66 per cent since the last federal election.
That’s an additional 400 households on average each week despite the Government handing out $5 billion of energy rebates to try to dull power bill pain.
At the National Press Club last week, the Prime Minister painted a rosy picture of the economy.
Completely at odds with the experiences of everyday Australians who are suffering under Labor’s cost-of-living crisis.
For a man who says that he is driven by the principle of “no-one held back, and no-one left behind,” Anthony Albanese is living on a different planet.
Consider his government’s economic record:
Under Labor, real disposable income per capita has fallen by 8.7 per cent.
That’s the biggest decline in the developed world.
Households have been in recession for seven consecutive quarters.
That is the longest running downturn for our country since the end of the Second World War.
The Prime Minister boasts of “keeping us out of recession.”
But he neglects to mention this is only the case because Labor has brought in a million new migrants over the last two years.
That is 70 per cent more migrants than in any other two-year period in Australia’s history.
And in opening the migration floodgates to keep the economy barely ticking, Labor has created a housing crisis and added pressure to infrastructure and services.
The truth is Australians are living through the worst collapse in our living standards on record.
Across the board, prices have increased by 11 per cent.
Australians are paying 12 per cent more for food, 14 per cent more for housing, 17 per cent more for rents.
Australians are forking out 19 per cent more for insurance, 10 per cent more for health, and 12 per cent more for education.
Underlying electricity prices are up 32 per cent – and gas prices are up 34 per cent.
Furthermore, our economy is slowing down – instead of speeding up.
Last year, GDP growth was a miserable 0.8 per cent.
Outside the pandemic, that’s the weakest annual growth since 1991.
This slowdown reflects a catastrophic 5.7 per cent fall in productivity under Labor.
As you know, labour productivity is a measure of output per hour worked.
Productivity matters and it will be a priority of our government.
In a healthy economy, businesses and their employees share the benefits of being able to produce more for the same inputs.
Boosting productivity isn’t about cutting jobs.
Rather, it’s about enabling management and workers to find better ways to produce goods and services, so both can reap the rewards.
Productivity growth allows workers to be paid more.
And it enables businesses to increase their profits, therefore to employ more people, without driving up prices.
Which is why the collapse in productivity under Labor has been so disastrous.
For workers, real incomes have shrunk.
For businesses, there’s been record insolvencies – some 27,000 businesses have failed over the last two and a half years on Labor’s watch.
Behind every one of them a personal story – a small business family who sacrificed everything to put themselves in a position to provide for their future, in many cases, will have lost their house and their life savings. Exactly as it was under Paul Keating.
Here’s the critical point:
Labor’s poor decisions have created and extended a cost-of-living crisis, compounded a productivity problem, and sent our economy backwards.
Labor has created three wrecking balls through the economy:
First, Labor’s irresponsible spending has kept inflation higher for longer.
High inflation means everything costs more – including business input costs like commercial rent, insurance and equipment.
And instead of spending money in ways which grow the economy, Labor has focused its expenditure on political and bureaucratic priorities.
Second, Labor’s reckless renewables-only policy – under which it’s replacing ‘always-on’ power for ‘sometimes-on’ power – has caused energy costs to skyrocket across the economy.
Thanks to this energy policy trainwreck, Australians are paying some of the highest electricity and gas prices in the world.
And high energy costs have made running a business more expensive and less competitive, particularly against competitor nations.
Accordingly, every product and service costs more for consumers – and businesses are going insolvent at a record and accelerating rate.
And third, Labor’s heavy hand of intervention and addiction to red and green tape – typical of big government – is suffocating businesses both big and small right across the economy.
I will delve deeper into these three factors today.
What’s clear, however, is that Australia cannot stay on Labor’s course.
Three more years of economic setbacks will set in stone decades of decline.
Our country urgently needs a government which revives responsible economic management and restores common sense economic policy – in a way that only a Coalition government can do.
And that’s what a Dutton Coalition Government will do after the election.
Today, I want to flesh out two of our key economic goals – busting inflation and boosting growth.
BUSTING INFLATION
Ladies and gentlemen, the Government may not like the decisions of the Reserve Bank of Australia.
But as the independent central bank responsible for monetary policy, the RBA is an institution whose advice government should listen to.
On multiple occasions, the RBA Governor has sounded an alarm bell.
Michele Bullock has said that Australia has a homegrown inflation problem – with a big driver being rapid and unrestrained government spending.
Her warnings have fallen on deaf ears.
The Albanese Government has lifted spending by a whopping $347 billion since coming to power – fuelling homegrown inflation. The Reserve Bank Governor is exactly right.
Don’t be misled by the latest headline inflation figure.
It presents a rosier picture of our inflation situation than is the case.
That’s, of course, because headline inflation has been heavily distorted by Labor’s energy rebates.
The best measure of underlying inflation pressure is core inflation.
Australia’s core inflation is 3.2 per cent – still above the 2 to 3 per cent target.
And at 3.2 per cent, our core inflation rate remains one of the highest in the G20 nations.
Persistent high core inflation is one reason there has been 12 cash rate rises on Labor’s watch – and why we are yet to see a rate cut here.
Interest rates, as we know, have already come down in the United States, in the United Kingdom, in New Zealand and in Canada, and across many continental European nations.
To get interest rates down, we need to get inflation down.
And to get inflation down, we need to address government spending.
Obviously, there are areas of the economy where a federal government needs to spend taxpayer money.
We need to do so in the national interest – and in line with public expectations.
We want a robust social safety net to assist Australians who have fallen on hard times through no fault of their own.
We want a sustainable health system to support sick and disabled Australians.
We want a well-equipped military and secure borders – because keeping our country safe in an uncertain century should be the first duty of any government.
And we want to upgrade old and build new infrastructure which is critical for urban and regional development.
These are just some core areas where responsible governments spend taxpayers’ money for the greater good.
And despite all the scare campaigns you will hear from Labor over the course of this coming election campaign, a Coalition Government will continue to invest in these core areas.
But there are also inflationary, ineffectual and imprudent ways to spend taxpayers’ money.
And that’s what we’ve seen in spades from the Albanese Labor Government.
In 2025-26, Commonwealth government spending is forecast to reach its highest level as a share of the economy, outside the pandemic, for four decades.
That is almost three percentage points of GDP higher than in 2022-23, which is an unbelievable achievement.
If the Prime Minister thinks he has done all he can to reduce inflation, then he clearly just doesn’t understand the basics of economics or what his Government has done and the impact it’s had on the economic settings.
Take, for example, the Government’s energy bill rebates.
Australians have been given $300, but it comes at a time when electricity has gone up by as much as $1,000.
But the Government’s expenditure of $5 billion of taxpayers’ money only treats the symptom of high energy prices, not the cause – which is Labor’s renewables-only policy trainwreck.
Worse, it keeps the pressure on inflation – prolonging the cost-of-living crisis – and provides only temporary relief.
Take, as another example, Labor’s student debt write-off. A classic example of Labor expenditure.
Every Australian household will have to pay around $1,500 to reduce HECS debt for three million students.
But why should lower income, non-graduate earners be asked to subsidise students who are already quite often earning higher incomes – or likely to after their graduation?
Labor’s attempt to pork-barrel the youth vote will cost taxpayers $16 billion – again adding to inflation over time.
So, households will pay more for their mortgages as a result.
The Albanese Government is also using billions of taxpayer dollars to subsidise uncommercial projects like green hydrogen – which private investors are walking away from.
Most egregiously, Labor is hiring an extra 36,000 public servants in Canberra at a cost of $6 billion a year.
I have not met an Australian across the country – I was in Alice Springs over the last couple of days – who can tell me their lives are better off because the Government’s employed 36,000 public servants in Canberra.
I have met people, I might say, who say their lives are worse off because of the extra bureaucratic red tape that comes with the employment of 36,000 more public servants.
Now, positions advertised have included culture, diversity and inclusion advisers, change managers, and internal communication specialists.
Such positions, as I say, do nothing to improve the lives of everyday Australians.
They’re certainly not frontline service delivery roles that can make a difference to people’s lives.
Labor says it’s created 1.1 million new jobs.
But this is a hollow and deceptive claim.
In the past year, seven in 10 jobs have been effectively taxpayer funded.
That’s a completely unsustainable economic situation.
Again, it’s a repeat of history as John Howard discovered when he came to office in 1996.
The CPSU wields so much power, it has obliged the Government to employ all these additional public servants.
The Rudd-Gillard Labor Government increased the number of public servants, excluding military and reserves, by 12,000 in just under six years.
In contrast, the previous Coalition Government reduced public servant numbers by 7,000 over nine years.
Now, the Albanese Government has increased them by a staggering 36,000 in just three years – and they’ve just started!
There’s a correlation between the periods of the most significant economic growth and productivity gains – usually under Coalition Governments – and an efficient public service.
Whereas when the public service becomes bloated and inefficient – as Labor has done in Victoria over the last decade – the economy is brought to its knees.
With exponential growth in the Canberra public service under Labor, we are drawing workers – in a tight labour market – away from the most productive parts of the economy into parts which are less productive.
And all-too-often those roles, as I say, add to costs and reduce productivity.
If there’s a standout example of Labor’s indulgent spending, it’s the almost $500 million it wasted on the Voice referendum, which only sought to divide our nation.
I pay tribute to Warren Mundine, who is here today, and my wonderful colleague Jacinta Price, as well.
As part of the changes, I recently announced to the Coalition’s Shadow Ministry, I’ve appointed Jacinta Price to the new role of Shadow Minister for Government Efficiency.
Should we win the election, Jacinta’s new role will fall within the Prime Minister and Cabinet portfolio to coordinate a reduction of inefficient spending across government.
My economic team’s objectives are clear:
We will cut wasteful spending, stop inflationary spending, and restore prudent spending.
Our government will scale back the Canberra public service in a responsible way.
I was very well served by the public service as a minister in various portfolios, including in the Defence Department.
But for a bureaucracy to work to the benefit of Australian taxpayers, it must be efficient.
We will protect front line positions in the defence, national security and intelligence space.
But overall, we will drive greater efficiency and productivity through our plan.
I want to see more money spent on frontline services which make a difference – more on doctors, more on national security, and more on our Veterans.
And wherever possible, I want to see a taxpayer dollar spent to create new dollars.
The aim must always be to spend taxpayer money in a manner which has an economic multiplying effect, generates productivity, and can attract new investment.
You can’t build a stronger and bigger economy by bloating Canberra’s bureaucracy.
You do it by investing in the most productive part of the economy – the private sector.
BOOSTING GROWTH
Which brings me to a Dutton Coalition Government’s second key economic goal – boosting growth.
And an essential part of that goal will be to improve productivity, which I mentioned earlier.
To boost growth, a top priority will be to remove regulation and curtail Canberra’s centralised interference.
There has been significant debate for a long period of time in relation to the way the Federation operates in our country.
It drives inefficiency, and as Kevin Rudd pointed out in 2007, the blame game has to stop.
Not only has it not stopped, of course, it has compounded as a problem.
The NDIS is one such example of the way in which there has been withdrawal of service and a complication in the way in which public policy is administered.
Taxpayers end up paying for that additional dollar to provide that service with no marginal gain, and this is an issue that we need to address.
We need to work with government, we need to work with business to reduce red and green tape.
Red and green tape has been a feature of the Albanese Government because it’s prioritising the agenda of Greens voters, activists and union bosses.
That’s what this Government has been about, and the Australian taxpayer is footing the bill.
Having embraced an ideological aversion to certain sectors in mining, energy and agriculture, Labor has used every tool at its disposal to delay, disrupt and destroy particular projects, sectors and industries.
These sectors have been targeted because the Government sees an opportunity to stop Labor deserters joining the Greens in inner city Sydney and Melbourne.
Western Australia’s live-sheep exports are being shut down.
Tasmania’s salmon industry remains in the Government’s crosshairs.
And more than 80 planned iron ore, coal and gas projects have stalled – projects which would have created 47,000 jobs and generated investment of $119 billion.
We’ve seen the Safeguard Mechanism turned into a new carbon tax – one three times higher than that implemented by Julia Gillard.
We’ve seen draconian new mandatory climate disclosure laws passed.
When these laws come into effect, businesses will not simply have to account for their own emissions, but also those produced all along their supply chain – including by small businesses.
If Labor’s changes can’t be reversed, countless small firms without the resources to produce detailed emissions reporting will simply be shut out of bidding for work.
We’ve seen millions of taxpayers’ dollars provided to the activist-led Environmental Defenders Office to wage lawfare against resource projects.
In a duplicitous way, the Prime Minister has told a Western Australian audience that his Government is in favour of mining.
But his Government’s funding of the EDO is another example of Labor saying to an east coast audience, that they’re actually on their side.
And we’ve seen Tanya Plibersek stymie projects across the country using environmental laws, again for political outcomes, putting our national interest at risk.
If you think things are bad now – I've had a few days in Perth in the last week as well, and business is particularly worried about the Nature Positive reforms.
If they are passed by Parliament, it will be a hammer blow to the mining sector in WA.
The Prime Minister has also sidelined known market winners.
For example, he has said “not a single government dollar” would be invested in gas under his Future Made in Australia plan.
He’s even ignoring his own Resources Minister who said, “The transition to net zero can’t be done without gas.”
Instead, he is picking his own winners, which was, again, a feature of the Hawke-Keating period.
Unsurprisingly, his handpicked winners need to be propped-up with subsidies.
Every resource CEO I’ve spoken to over the course of the last nine months or so, tells me that they are not investing in greenfield opportunities here in Australia, they are investing in Africa, in North America, in Asia.
They are seeking to extend the life of assets that they have here in Australia but the investment profile, the risk profile is too great.
That is going to have a negative impact on workers, and the mining sector in WA in particular.
With big union bosses seeking new power in national life, Labor has also obediently implemented an antiquated workplace agenda.
Multi-employer bargaining is the mechanism through which union bosses can exert new influence across the economy – including in small businesses.
The focus of too many union bosses is on power – not the welfare of their members.
Most shamefully, on being elected, Labor gave significant additional power to the militant and disgraced CFMEU.
The CFMEU continues to send delegates to Labor conferences and still wields power in determining the leadership at a state and federal level within the Labor party.
We will deregister the CFMEU and our country will be better for it.
The CFMEU is essentially a modern-day mafia operation which has contributed to construction cost escalation and poor work practices – where productivity is down to just over 2 days a week.
Wherever a CFMEU flag flies, the corrupt and criminally infiltrated union hikes the costs on the projects it controls by some 30 per cent.
We need more roads built in this country.
We need to make sure that we put downward pressure on construction costs as our population ages.
We need to invest more, and more efficiently in hospitals.
We need to make sure that we have the most efficient spend of taxpayer's money because people are working harder for every dollar.
Under the CFMEU, with its rip-offs and rorts, it costs taxpayers hundreds-of-millions of dollars across the economy, on major projects each year.
And that has a contagion effect across the building sector and wider economy.
As John Howard said in his speech here, and at many speeches as Prime Minister, the Coalition is not against unions.
Unions have played a significant role in our history and continue to play an important role in representing workers’ rights.
Any Australian is free to join a union – and we will never stand against that liberty.
What the Coalition will stand against, however, is union bosses who use their power to crush competition, undermine the free market, and drive-up costs for everyday Australians.
A Dutton Coalition Government will stare down the militancy of union bosses.
We will do this in the interests of employees and employers first and foremost.
And it’s why, among other measures, we will urgently restore the building industry watchdog.
In addition to growing union influence, we’ve also witnessed – as I’ve said – one of the biggest growths of the public service on record.
Now, in everything I’ve mentioned, we know that Labor’s continual push is to grow those unproductive parts of our economy for their own political outcome.
When Jim Chalmers wrote about wanting to ‘build a better capitalism’ it was doublespeak.
The Albanese Government has endeavoured to move Australia away from a free-market economy and towards a state-directed and controlled economy.
In this, it’s ignored history’s lessons and embraced history’s mistakes.
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for smaller government which gets off people’s backs and revives the freedom that allows our economy to flourish.
Many of you have been involved in businesses and still are today.
Our task is to help you grow, not reduce the size of your business and workforce.
My intention is to make Australia a mining, agricultural and manufacturing powerhouse once again.
We will defund the activist-led Environmental Defenders Office.
We will ensure Labor’s Nature Positive agenda never sees the light of day.
We will remove draconian mandatory climate disclosure laws.
We will slash project approval timeframes in half.
We will accredit states and territories to provide environmental approvals.
And we will re-introduce geological bio-regional assessments to unlock new projects.
Unlike Labor, we will not turn our backs on our natural economic strengths of this great nation.
Under a Coalition Government I lead, more mining approvals will be granted, more gas will flow, more farms will flourish, and more factories will open.
Mining, agriculture and manufacturing are not only essential for our national resilience.
They’re also critical sources of revenue to help build new infrastructure here in Sydney, in Melbourne, in Brisbane, in Adelaide, and right across the country.
We need to find education services and equip our defence force.
Indeed, the mining sector will receive the support of the Coalition because it has paid more than $350 billion in company tax and royalties over the past decade and employed some 300,000 people last financial year.
A Coalition Government will encourage new areas of the economy – like artificial intelligence, automation, cyber security, and space, bio and nanotechnologies.
But not at the expense of – or in place of – these existing core sectors.
Boosting economic growth is not simply about removing regulation and curtailing Canberra’s centralised interference.
It’s also about taking other steps to bolster productivity and address anaemic growth.
And that includes by encouraging hard work and entrepreneurship – and ensuring new investment is directed efficiently not wastefully.
The Coalition has always been the party of lower taxes.
And we gladly set our ledger against Labor’s effort any day of the week.
We legislated all stages – stages 1, 2 and 3 of the tax cuts.
Australians get ahead – and our economy gets ahead – when taxation burdens are reduced on everyday Australians – and when business formation is encouraged.
But under Labor, personal income taxes paid have increased by 22 per cent.
My commitment to Australians is that a Coalition Government will deliver lower, simpler and fairer taxes.
Of course, how quickly we can move will be affected by how bad the state of the books are when we take government this year.
Labor is already forecasting a decade of significant deficits.
Already, we’ve announced some substantial commitments to support small business – the engine room of our economy.
We will increase the instant asset write-off to $30,000 and make this arrangement ongoing.
And for small businesses with a turnover of up to $10 million, we will offer – for two years – a tax deduction of up to $20,000 per financial year for business-related meal expenses at local cafes, pubs and restaurants.
This will mean lower tax for small businesses – and a shot in the arm for hospitality venues at a time when they need it most.
It will help many small firms weather the current record wave of insolvencies under Labor, until growth and economic stability can be restored by the Coalition.
We can provide support to those mums and dads who have sacrificed so much for themselves and their children.
We’ve also committed to improving competition policy.
In particular, deterring the big supermarkets from undermining competition and ripping off consumers and farmers.
It’s at the checkout where Australians are hurting every week.
And most importantly, we will take an energy policy to the next election which is the only hope to deliver affordable and reliable energy.
In the immediate term, we will ramp-up domestic gas production to get power prices down and restore stability to our grid.
Over the longer term, we will place the latest zero emission nuclear technologies on the sites of seven retiring coal-fired power plants.
We will have a balanced energy mix comprising renewables, storage, gas, and nuclear.
Our policy will bring energy price relief to families and businesses.
And for businesses, our policy will not only deliver lower input costs.
It will provide businesses with the confidence they need to provide future power in a reliable way where manufacturing can reemerge in this country, where we can compete again with our competitors.
I make no apologies for taking to the next election an energy policy that dispenses with political short-termism.
My vision for our country is to have an energy policy which drives a strong economy for the next century.
I want to achieve the highest yield of energy per square metre of impact on the environment at the lowest possible cost as we decarbonise.
Our energy policy is in the long-term interest of our country and will shore-up our energy security for generations to come.
And why is nuclear the right answer.
Well, in part, of course, it’s because 19 of the top 20 economies in the world are already on this path.
More than 400 reactors operate worldwide today.
More than 30 countries use nuclear power.
Dozens more nations are looking to introduce nuclear power for the first time.
It is 44 per cent cheaper than Labor’s energy policy, more reliable, and the only credible pathway to meet our emissions reduction commitment.
It’s beyond time for Australia to join the growing league of nuclear-powered nations.
The Prime Minister has dispensed with any concerns about safety or disposal because he has signed up to the AUKUS deal that we negotiated when we were in government, for the submarines.
BACK ON TRACK
Ladies and gentlemen, what is so frustrating about the last two-and-a-half years is that Australians have endured a cost-of-living crisis that we didn’t have to have.
A combination of hubris and ignorance has seen Labor dispense with basic economics.
And nothing will change if they’re returned to government.
A Dutton Coalition Government will revive responsible economic management.
We will restore common sense economic policy.
We will bust inflation and grow the economy.
We will boost growth.
And when we do these things, just as John Howard and Peter Costello did, we will get our country back on track.
We will restore the aspiration, the optimism and confidence which seems so distant for Australians right now, but which are within their grasp again.
Can I just say, in closing, thank you again for being here today.
Thank you for your commitment to our country, to our cause, for your belief in a better pathway ahead.
For your support, financially and morally, of the work of the Menzies Research Centre.
To all of those in this room who contribute so much to our economy, one of the things I want to do as Prime Minister of our country is to restore our national pride.
Part of the reason I’ve spoken about us combining and uniting together under one flag is because we can’t be united and we can’t be our best if we’re putting people into separate tribes.
I want to bring our country together, and if we do that, there are not only social and economic benefits that flow.
We can respect our Indigenous heritage – we should be incredibly proud of it – but we shouldn’t shun our modern day miracle story.
Migration in this country and the great migrant story, particularly in the post-Second World War era, has been remarkable.
Small business has thrived in this country because of the efforts of people who have come from Europe, from Asia, from across the globe.
People who have contributed in a way that their children and grandchildren have benefited from our country and our country has benefited from.
And their own grandparents, could never have imagined the success that we’ve enjoyed in this country.
By harnessing that entrepreneurial spirit, and where it exists across the country otherwise, we have the ability to turn this country around.
We have the ability to get our country Back on Track – and that is exactly our intention as we march towards the next election.
With your support, we can achieve success, and the best days for this wonderful country, the best country on earth, will be ahead of us.
Thank you very much.
This is a transcript of a keynote address given by Leader of the Opposition, Hon Peter Dutton MP, to the Menzies Research Centre this week.