Opposition leader Sussan Ley says welfare should be targeted “to those who truly need it”, and people should be helped “off welfare and into self-reliance”.

In her first major economic speech as leader, Ley on Wednesday will lay down some policy markers to contain spending and the size of government, with more people looking after their own needs rather than expecting government to do so.

Welfare benefits should not be paid to wealthier households, Ley says in her speech, titled “From Dependency to Empowerment: Restoring Responsibility to the Budget”. To be given to CEDA in Melbourne, it has been released ahead of delivery.

“We must move from a time of dependency to empowerment,” she says.

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

"This mindset, supercharged in recent years, weakens both our finances and our national character.

"My message is that we must put guard rails around government spending, not as an end in itself, but so that we can strengthen our economy, preserve our capacity to help those truly in need, and ensure the next generation inherits opportunity, not debt.

"Because debt is an issue of intergenerational fairness.”

Ley says that moving to empowerment is about getting the balance right between what people do for themselves and the taxpayer-funded safety net.

“It’s about reaffirming that government can do a lot of good but it cannot and should not do........

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