Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the matters of public importance motion of my colleague the member for North Sydney on the failure of this government to take decisive action to ease the rising cost of living. This Labor government, led by Prime Minister Gillard, has failed in so many ways. But, more than ever, Australians are feeling let down following Labor’s broken promise to address the rising cost of living.

Prime Minister Gillard looked Australians in the eye and promised that hers would be a government that was ‘moving forward’, yet it appears that the only direction Labor is heading in is further and further into political spin. I suppose we should not be surprised that the Prime Minister has broken yet another Labor promise, this time the promise to address the cost-of-living pressures on Australians. You only have to ask the former Prime Minister, the member for Griffith, just how much the Prime Minister’s word is worth.

Just like the Prime Minister’s word on 17 May, when she said that there was more chance of her becoming full forward for the ‘Dogs than there was of any change in the Labor Party, the Prime Minister’s—and her Labor government’s—pledge to do something—anything—to ease the rising cost of living is a furphy. It is the case that the Prime Minister did not keep her word to the member for Griffith on three or more occasions, and clearly she is intent on not keeping her word to families, individuals and businesses who are struggling with rising costs under this Labor government.

Anyone who seriously believes that the Rudd Labor government had or the Gillard Labor government has—depending on whether you look at this issue pre or post the events of 24 June—any plan to address the cost-of-living pressures is being deliberately dishonest. Prior to the midnight knock on his door from the member for Maribyrnong and Senator Arbib, the member for Griffith was hailed as the almighty Labor leader who brought the party back from 12 of its most miserable and irrelevant years in opposition. The member for Griffith also boldly looked the Australian people in the eye and promised to address the cost-of-living pressures. But all the member for Griffith has as his legacy are the failed programs GroceryWatch and Fuelwatch—at least $7 million wasted and thrown away, all because the member for Griffith and his then loyal deputy, now the Prime Minister, cobbled together a plan to make the government look as though they were acting on their promise to the Australian people to address the cost of living.

The fact is GroceryWatch was a dud, just as this government is a dud government. Like so many of the Rudd and Gillard government programs, GroceryWatch cost a lot and delivered little. Make no mistake: we could speak for days and days about Labor’s failures, policy debacles, backflips and, to quote the Prime Minister, programs that are ‘a mess’. When you look hard at what this government promised prior to the 2007 election and subsequently, with their new ‘real’ leader, prior to the 2010 election, you see the government has failed to deliver on their main promise, and that was to do something about the rising cost of living. For all Labor’s talk about the rising cost of living eating away at the social fabric of the country, the cost of living meant nothing to a Labor opposition and then a Labor government that is happy to say and do anything to win a vote and, once they have that vote, to do absolutely nothing about a problem that trusting Australians took them at their word to fix. I find it very alarming that in our country today—the best country in the world—we still, despite our records of achievement, hear day in and day out about people rationing food, skipping meals because they cannot afford to go to the grocery stores and, in many cases, not having power for their homes whilst they wait for the next payday to come.

Recently the Courier Mail carried a prominent report which looked at the rising cost of living in the state of Queensland. It said that rising costs across the board are forcing more and more Queenslanders into real hardship. It reported that more than 10 per cent of the population in the Sunshine State is living in poverty conditions. That equates to more than 400,000 people who are struggling to pay everything from grocery bills to utility bills. That is in Queensland alone. I have grave fears that, if this typical Labor talkfest continues, things will get a whole lot worse for these Queenslanders and, no doubt, for other Australians living in extreme financial hardship around the nation before they get any better.

In the Sunday Mail on 12 September it was revealed that householders will have to find as much as $600 more to meet soaring energy and water bills next year. For many, this is another $600 that they do not have and will not be able to find. It is not as though they can send their bills to their state and federal Labor governments who have let them down for far too long. Their taxes and costs go up under Labor, whilst their quality of life goes down. The article found that for a family of five living in a large house with a garden, air conditioning and a gas heater, utility bills would increase by $600 per year; for a family of three living in a three-bedroom home with a medium-sized garden, by $300; and for a couple in a small house with a small courtyard, by $200. These costs are going up under Labor, and taxpayers are getting absolutely nothing back in return.

A separate article in the Sunday Mail predicted that electricity prices will rise by 60 per cent over the next five years and will push low-income families over the edge. These are the very income earners and Australians whom Labor always claim as their own but never support. The article went on to say that it is not uncommon for social workers to find people living in their homes without electricity.

This is not an Australia I want to see. The Labor government has a responsibility to stop the talk and put aside the spin, whether it is the Prime Minister, the Treasurer—now Deputy Prime Minster, following his promotion—the member for Griffith, the member for Maribyrnong or the member for Charlton. It does not matter which one of them wants the credit. The coalition and the Australian people just want to see the problem addressed.

In the September quarter of 2010, the ABS consumer price index rose by 0.7 per cent, compared with 0.6 per cent in the June quarter. However, the most significant rises, which dismiss the government’s rhetoric of ‘moving forward’, were a rise of 12.8 per cent in water and sewerage costs, a six per cent rise in electricity costs and a rise of 6.2 per cent in property rates and charges. In the June quarter of 2010, electricity prices rose by 18.2 per cent, petrol prices rose by 7.6 per cent, childcare costs rose by 5.5 per cent and the price of vegetables rose by 3.3 per cent. Clearly, this nation is not ‘moving forward’, and the Gillard government has not taken any action to remedy this crisis. Take the article in the Adelaide Advertiser on 9 October 2010 which detailed how the cost of a basket of groceries, including milk, bread, butter, oranges, bananas, chocolate, eggs, coffee and laundry detergent, had risen from $210 in the June 2005 quarter to $259 in the same period of 2010, according to ABS data—another failure of this Labor government.

What is most alarming about the Labor government’s ignorance on this issue is that deep down they know they have failed. The government is well aware of their promises and their failures. The tide of popularity that swept the member for Griffith to power in 2007 was largely different to the tide of union and caucus revolt that saw him lose the keys to the Lodge. However, the member for Lindsay was right when he stood up in the Labor caucus to raise concerns about the Labor Party’s disastrous 25 per cent swing in the Penrith by-election, which he believed was due to voter concern about the federal government’s inaction on the issues of asylum seekers and the rising cost of living.

Let us look at Labor’s record of helping families, individuals and businesses with the rising cost of living pressures we all face. The Labor government has seen six interest rate increases in just 10 months and continues to put upward pressure on interest rates through its record budget deficits. Labor cut the maximum child-care rebate by more than $250 per child. Labor has done nothing to bring down rising fuel and grocery prices. Labor is about big spending, even bigger debt and having no plans to address the everyday pressures on families that it pretended to understand so well during the election campaign. This government has failed Australian families and workers by not addressing the rising cost of living, and in doing so it has once again confirmed that it does not take the job of governing seriously. This Prime Minister cannot be taken at her word. Only the coalition can deliver real reform.

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