Sen Susan McDonald (1) – Ongoing fuel crisis, Budget speculation

0:00Well, welcome back to Rural Queen's Land Today. Twice in a week, we are blessed here at Rural Queen's Land Today. We're back to normal programming on a Friday morning. It is the 1st of May. Can you believe that we are in to May? Senator Susan McDonnell joining us this morning. Hello, Senator, good morning. How are you? Good morning, Ben. Well, I'm great. And I think that, you know, the world crisis that we're in, Australia is managing. There's still headwinds coming. But, you know, I think the world continues to turn. And Australians continue to be trying to make as many preparations as they can to look through the continued close of the stretch of the moon. What that means for tourism businesses down about 40% in bookings about farmers who have had a poor diesel and fertiliser to see dairy cattle and still make a profit.

1:01You know, there's some really foods in Australia, but, you know, every day we're getting up and we're having another go. I like it. And I've seen some improvement in the fuel price. I want to get to the trim trough first, but I'm concerned by, and I say this, that we've got a labor government and we've got a treasurer now that's, you know, going to get stuck into negative gearing. There's no incentive to invest. Anybody that's had a crack and had a go is getting punished. And you want to talk about doomsday. You just were positive. You feel like things are improving. Well, Jim Charmers, the treasurer, all he is doing is talking doom and gloom and massive crisis and recession and talking it down. That is not what drives economy. It just does not drive economy. That negative talk, like he's the piper that can get us out of this, well, they've proven

2:01that they can't. Now, yes, there's world dramas going on at the moment and yes, we are affected by that, but let's just make sure that we understand manufacturing here in this country and obviously industry in this country is priority. They've never wanted that. They do not want that. The Labor Party that what was or was and they'll have the Tree of Knowledge Festival this weekend in Buck, Aldon and they'll talk about how wonderful it is. But that's not the party that leads this country now. It's far from it. It's not even remotely the same ideologies. Well, that is exactly right. I mean, Labor under Albinese and Charmers is a party that just, you know, taxes to something they haven't yet had an opportunity to put on to you. They do not understand what it's like to grow something, to take a risk, to grow business, to go into regional Australia, to develop oil and gas fields, to build a bakery, to take

3:04a risk and buy another house and then rent it out to somebody who doesn't have that opportunity yet. That's what building things, growing things, that's what Australia is. We have always been a country of people gone, I'm going to get up and have a go. But instead, Labor is all about changing the goalposts, changing the rule and taxing the crackers out of you. What's not how you develop and you grow things and you make Australia a bigger, better place, particularly countries that should be the energy powerhouse of the world. Absolutely. We have got it all here. What have we got to do? We've got to get out of the way. We've got to have less subjective decision-making from departments. We have to approve projects far, return Australia to having the energy security and sovereignty that we use to have. Return Australia to be the sort of place where all businesses thrive, where young people can get on a apprenticeship, get stuck in, make something of their own lives, a country

4:10that can stop bringing in migrants who don't add to the national account. People who want to work, not people who want to be on the dole. That's the sort of country we need to be really focused on, talking about, and making sure that our government is driving us in that direction. But Labor is not. I don't understand how they don't understand. We can't act an economy to prosperity. They will absolutely kill what has been a very successful country over the last 200 years. Do you believe that there will be a pushback because of this? I feel like they've got it so horribly wrong this time round. Are you concerned about the pushback that could come from these kind of new laws and legislations? He's been muting it for a while that it's going to happen. They're going to go that way.

5:12I can guarantee that what happens when you start changing the rules, you start imposing extra taxes, what happens is that Australia, people start selling property that would otherwise be available to people to rent, to see more homes being occupied. We know it because in Queensland, when under Palacay, they introduce those kind of additional taxes on rental properties and homes, 30% of the rental market left in Townsville. That made it go harder and more expensive to rent a house. This is the practical realities of when you change the rules. In Victoria, the property market there, you're seeing less houses available for rental because they're trying to tax their way to more houses. No, no, build more houses up down on immigration. That's how you get more property available for rentals and how you get young people into

6:13houses that they can afford. But I think this is a real problem for Labor that they do not understand the impact of more taxes on a society who will just, they will break, they will just keep taxing as the power of existence and jobs go. And what's left, government jobs, well, government jobs are well paid and great, but they don't grow the money. They don't grow the country, you know. Hey, Senator, stay with us. We're with Susan McDonnell this morning, rural Queensland today.