Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Housing and Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

'They have half a shower' is what the honourable member says. I suppose that, if we take that logic to its ultimate conclusion, it means that pensioners might only be able to half cook their food and so on. On top of all that, water and sewerage prices have increased by an average of 45.6 per cent. Again, who are the hardest hit? Those people who are on limited, fixed incomes—the pensioners of Australia. Health costs, including hospital, optical, dental and pharmaceuticals, have increased by an average of 15.3 per cent across Australia. The price of bread—one of the staples of people's diet—has gone up by 11.6 per cent across Australia, and overall the cost of food has increased by 10.3 per cent across Australia.

With these increases in the cost of living—43 per cent for electricity, 28 per cent for gas, 45 per cent for water and sewerage, 15 per cent for pharmaceuticals and healthcare, 11 per cent for bread alone and 10 per cent for food overall—Australian pensioners are among the people hardest hit, and, of course, the situation will only worsen under the government's carbon tax. This government's carbon tax will only increase the cost of living further for all Australians; but those on fixed incomes, such as pensioners, will be the hardest hit. This unnecessary carbon tax will hurt them, with higher electricity costs, higher grocery prices as well as higher petrol costs, which will mean that the cost of anything that has to do with the production of energy and anything that has been transported at any stage of its production in Australia will go up.

Of course there is a deception in what the government is trying to project on this. We are told day after day, week after week for month after month that only the 500 biggest polluters in the country will pay. The implication is that this is going to be confined to 500 companies. Of course, the government cannot name the 500 companies— repeated questioning aimed at identifying the 500 companies goes unanswered. However, leaving that aside, the implication is that only those 500 companies will pay. If that were right, why would we need this compensation package? If it were true that only those companies were going to pay, that the costs were never going to be passed on to anyone else in Australia and that the poor old pensioners were not going to cop some of the costs, why would we need a compensation package? These questions expose the essential deception of what the government is trying to project to the Australian people.

The reality is that not only are the 500 biggest companies going to pay; they are, of course, going to pass on their costs to everybody in this chamber and everybody in Australia. Most of all, they are going to pass it on to all the pensioners in Australia. The reality is that the best word to describe this government is 'mismanagement'. There has been mismanagement and incompetency all along the line. They were shamed into increasing the pension, and they do not have much to crow about today.

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