The Prime Minister is out today boasting about his ban on card surcharges. But there’s a catch. While small businesses are being told to absorb the cost of accepting credit cards, his own Tax Office has decided it won’t. Instead, the ATO will simply stop accepting credit cards altogether. You couldn’t make it up. Labor can’t help itself. Every day brings another cost, another regulation or another burden for Australians trying to work hard, take a risk and get ahead. The Prime Minister should reverse this ridiculous decision today.

Labor’s budget keeps falling apart by the day. This week the Government finally back flipped on the cruel allied health cap they put on our veterans. It was also revealed the Prime Minister spent $7 billion in a text message to an ABC journalist increasing the refugee intake. And despite much fan fare the government isn’t cutting migration. It has only committed to reach its targets which it has never met and are still way too high.

The PM has delivered a trifecta of failure on housing: fewer homes, higher rents and confidence smashed. Today we learned new-home sales have crashed 20 per cent in just three months, while there are 15 per cent fewer construction apprentices and trainees than when Labor came to office. Australia can’t build the homes we need if Labor keeps making it harder to build them. We have a plan to fix the economy and protect our way of life.

Over the past few weeks, my team has taken our plan directly to Australians. We’ve sat down with small business owners, workers and families. Aspirational Australians who are working hard to get ahead but are being held back by the socialist Albanese Labor Government. They’ve told us the same thing: the pressure is real, and Australia needs a change of government. They want lower taxes, cheaper power, less migration and more homes. They want a team with a plan that puts Australians first. A plan to fix the economy and protect our way of life. The Coalition has that team and that plan.

Only the Coalition has a plan to fix the economy and protect our way of life! You can find Our Plan here: liberal.org.au/our-plan

Lower taxes. Cheaper power. Less migration and more homes. Putting Australians first. These are our priorities to restore Australians’ standard of living and to protect our way of life.

Our plan will put Australians first. Lower taxes, more houses, cheaper energy, capping migration based on housing supply.

To read Richard Scolyer’s “final farewell” letter is to recognise that our nation has lost a truly great and gracious Australian. In that goodbye, Professor Scolyer said that “cancer does not define us.” Yet Professor Scolyer’s more than three decades of work has defined cancer research and treatment – inroads that ultimately will help humanity defeat this dreadful disease. Professor Scolyer will be remembered for his breakthroughs in melanoma treatment, including immunotherapy, and being the first patient to receive brain cancer treatment based on what he helped develop. Among his many achievements was his nurturing of young doctors and researchers who will carry on his work. If Professor Scolyer was driven by a responsibility to try and “change the future for others and leave the world a better place”, he did just that. He was brave, bold and challenged the status quo. He was an Australian of the Year, yet Australians will honour him for all the years to come. Our heartfelt thoughts are with Richard’s wife Katie, his children Emily, Matthew and Lucy, his wider family, his colleagues in medicine, and all those whose lives he changed for the better. May Richard Scolyer rest in peace.