Peter Dutton uses federal budget reply speech to attack government’s ‘missed opportunity’ to help Australians in need

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has put cost of living concerns at the centre of his budget in reply speech, accusing Labor’s budget of being a “missed opportunity” to help Australians in need.

In the set-piece speech in Canberra on Thursday night, Dutton also targeted Labor over energy policy, and framed a new debate over the school curriculum, saying parents were worried about “radical gender theory” and the teaching of a “sanitised” version of history.

But amid a fierce debate over cost of living concerns, as inflation in Australia reaches 30-year highs, Dutton devoted much of the speech to targeting the government over its push to reach 82% renewables by 2030, saying it would only add to the cost of electricity bills for struggling families and businesses.

“Labor’s budget was a missed opportunity to help you at a time when you need help,” Dutton said.

“The treasurer failed to mention in his speech what Labor’s budget papers verified – ‘everything is going up, except your wages,’” he said, in reference to Labor’s campaign slogan while in opposition.

“Cost-of-living, power prices, taxes, interest rates, unemployment, and the deficit are going up, or will be going up,” he said.

The budget papers showed that the cost of energy would surge over the next two years, with electricity prices forecast to increase 56% over this year and next, while gas prices jumped 44%.

While Dutton acknowledged the war in Ukraine was playing a part, he said the price pressures and the rationing of power seen in Europe were partly because of the transition to renewables. He said the government was making a similar mistake by cutting funding to new gas projects and “recklessly” rushing to renewables, and warned that the forecast power prices outlined in the budget were “just the beginning”.

“Governments in several countries in recent years have made catastrophic energy decisions – they have turned off the secure supply of electricity and gas before the technology and system are ready for more renewable energy,” Dutton said.

“Despite those warnings and lessons, this Labor government is following in the footsteps of those countries.”

He said the government’s rewiring the nation policy would see “hundreds-of-billions-of-dollars” spent on rolling-out poles and high transmission wires in towns and suburbs, saying regions and farms would be “carpeted”.

“Every dollar spent on new transmission lines will be paid for by consumers through higher electricity bills.”

The opposition leader said that countries such as Canada, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK and the US were all investing in next generation, zero-emission small, modular nuclear reactors, and suggested Australia needed to consider the same.

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“The imperative to create affordable, reliable, and emissions-free energy is why the Coalition is seeking an intelligent conversation on the role these new-age nuclear technologies could play in the energy mix,” he said.

Dutton also used Tuesday night’s speech to recommit the Coalition to its pre-election policy of allowing Australians to tap into their superannuation to buy a home, and pledged to restore $50m in community safety grants scrapped in the budget.

While he announced no new policies, Dutton said the Coalition would have a “clearly defined, positive and bold plan” ahead of the next election. Speaking of his background as a police officer, Dutton said the Coalition would “invest significantly” in family support services and to protect women and children from sexual assault, but gave no details.

Despite the mostly combative tone, Dutton also said there were several “good” measures in the government’s budget, including the extension of the childcare subsidy, the cheaper medicines policy, support for veterans, measures for the prevention of domestic violence and flood relief.

After the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, flagged the need for a new national conversation about the fiscal challenges ahead as spending pressures on the public purse mount, Dutton said the government was intending to include more taxes in next year’s budget.

He accused the government of preparing the ground to wind back the stage three tax cuts, despite “unequivocally” promising to keep them.

Dutton also took aim at the government’s industrial relations bill tabled this week, calling it a “throwback to the 1980s” that would undermine productivity and allow “crippling economy-wide strikes”.

The opposition leader, who hails from the party’s conservative faction, also spoke about the education sector, saying he and “many parents” were concerned about the education children were receiving at school.

“In our school curriculum, it’s important to include studies of the environment and other social policies, but the system has allowed ideologically driven advocates too much influence over what is taught to our children,” he said.

“Teaching a sanitised and selective version of history and the arts – and radical gender theory – is not in our children’s best interests.”

Dutton said that there was a need for Australia to celebrate “our wonderful Indigenous history”, while being equally proud of our British heritage and our migrant story, and called for a renewed focus on literacy and numeracy.

“What is needed is a focus on making the basics a priority – reading, writing and maths, fostering a love of country and pride in our history and democracy, without sugar coating the past,” he said.

“Where the teachers lead the instruction and are supported to have orderly classrooms, where students learn respect, discipline, and ‘how to think’ not ‘what to think’.”