Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the matter of public importance, put forward by the member for Wide Bay, about the adverse impact of government policies on the cost of living. My understanding of the geography is that the member for Wide Bay is actually an MP from Queensland, yet when he stood up and made his speech I thought that perhaps Wide Bay had moved or that maybe it should have been about Jervis Bay in the ACT or Shark Bay in WA or Port Phillip Bay in Victoria because he made no mention of the recent happenings in Queensland. The reality is that under the Liberal National Party government in Queensland and since the last election just 13 months ago families have been paying $1,000 more. Take electricity prices. My understanding is that the federal government does not own any power stations. I have not checked that exhaustively, but my understanding is we do not own any power stations. The Queensland government does own power stations and the other day the Queensland government foreshadowed a 22.6 per cent increase in electricity prices, starting in five days time. In fact, if you were an elderly person living alone, your electricity price cost would go up in five days by 27.9 per cent. So I was quite surprised that the member for Wide Bay—which I am pretty sure is in Queensland—who is a member of the Liberal and National parties coalition, made no mention, in a speech on the cost of living, of this hit to the budget.

My understanding of cost of living is pretty basic: it is about the roof over your head, the taxes you pay, your food and groceries, your electricity and heating, education costs, maybe your internet costs and health costs. So that is about it in terms of the cost of living. Let us unpack some of those things. Insurance was mentioned by the member for Menzies. I was horrified to see in the Queensland state budget that they are increasing the stamp duty on an insurance policy—a policy that actually has GST on it, so you have got a tax on a tax. So that is something that the Queensland government has introduced—but no mention of that by the member for Wide Bay. Let us have a look at the costs. The biggest cost for most households is their mortgage. Let us have a look at where interest rates were when John Howard exited stage left compared to today's. Are the interest rates higher than when John Howard left? No. In fact, most households are saving up to $100 per week—and I will say it again for the benefit of those members opposite who are from Queensland: a $100 per week saving. And it is great to see that people are paying off their mortgages.

Let us have a look at some of the other things. Obviously cost of living is one thing, but it is more important that you actually have a job. That is the best way to keep on top of your cost of living. There have been 960,000 jobs created since we came to power. Is unemployment sky high? Is there a budget emergency with sky-high unemployment like 11.9 per cent in Europe? No. It is 5.5 per cent. In fact, 10 years ago the former Treasurer, Peter Costello, said if you had an unemployment rate of 5.6 it would be a magnificent economic achievement. There is no acknowledgement of that. Let us also note that we have a AAA credit rating and our economy has grown from 15th to 12th biggest. We got through the global financial crisis.

Like anyone, if your economic circumstances change, you make a decision about your economic circumstances and say, 'Maybe we should borrow a bit of money to make sure we look after the household.' That is what a sensible economic manager does. What have those opposite done? Let us have a look. When the economic circumstances changed for the Leader of the Opposition, when he went from being a government minister to being a backbencher, what did he do? Did he do what he suggests and say debt is bad? I found this article by Simon Benson, who had dinner with the Leader of the Opposition the other night. He wrote an article saying:

OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott took out a new $710,000 mortgage on his family home shortly after going into Opposition, partly to help fund his family expenses after losing his ministerial salary.

But in what appears to be a breach of the parliamentary rules covering MPs' pecuniary interests, he failed to declare the loans to Parliament for almost two years.

The man who claimed in January 2008 that politicians don't get paid enough took out a new loan on his family home in April 2008, four months after losing the election and halving his salary.

  …   …   …

Mr Abbott has made no secret in the past that he had often found it challenging to make ends meet.

Great to think that you could—

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