Sussan Ley’s lifters and leaners: leader lays out markers for Coalition economic agenda

Sussan Ley will declare Australians need to stop looking to government as the answer to everything and argue the economic pendulum has swung too far towards dependency as she sets out markers for the Coalition’s new policy agenda.

The Opposition Leader argues that Labor has actively encouraged a “government will take care of everything” mindset, in a major economic speech that has shades of Joe Hockey’s 2014 “lifters and leaners” rhetoric.

Ms Ley will warn that the should have pulled back on crisis-level spending after the pandemic and if it continues, “we will inevitably lose our AAA credit rating”, according to extracts provided ahead of her address to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia on Wednesday.

“We must move from a time of dependency to empowerment,” Ms Ley will say.

“By dependency, I mean the growing expectation that government will provide for every need and solve every problem by spending more.

“Unfortunately, in the past few years, the pendulum has swung too far toward dependency.

“It has become almost taboo in politics to suggest that not everyone is entitled to every government benefit. But I ask: is it fair to pile up debts that our children will have to pay off?

“The time of reflexively looking to Canberra to solve every problem with a blank cheque must give way to a time of empowerment, personal responsibility, and fiscal commonsense.”

Ms Ley cites a Centre for Independent Studies report that found “it is likely that more than half of voters rely on government for most of their income.”

That conclusion was based on adding together public servants including those in schools and Defence, people who work in sectors reliant on public funding like aged care, childcare, and disability care, and those who received welfare payments.

Ms Ley calls for government payments to be better targeted, saying people in high-income households shouldn’t be benefitting.

Hinting at looming opposition to the Government’s plans to shift towards a universal cheap or free childcare system akin to public schools, she says that while “universal free everything might sound nice”, the reality drained resources from where they were needed most.

The Coalition is still reworking its policy platform after the May election loss.

Ms Ley says it will be aimed at classic Liberal values of living within our means, restoring “fiscal guardrails” about government spending levels, and rewarding individual effort.