Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I hear someone over there interjecting about the carbon tax. I am so pleased that that is being interjected to me, because 59 per cent of households say that the repeal of the carbon tax has had absolutely no impact, no reduction, on their household expenses—no reduction whatsoever. But what is happening with the cost of living, what is happening in households, what is happening around the kitchen table is that one half of households say that they are cutting back on essential items. How is that for consumer confidence! How is that for the economy! Half of households are cutting back on non-essentials. What is an even greater shame than that is that one-third of households are cutting back on essentials. In fact, 15 per cent say that they have deliberately missed paying a bill by its due date, because of the cost of living pressures that are on their household at the moment. It is a crying shame.

It is about time that the Liberal-National government, the Abbott government, a year into their first term, started taking some responsibility for the consequences of their own actions. Stop pointing the finger at Labor. Stop pointing the finger at our side of the chamber. Stop being so obsessive about us and start taking some responsibility for what you have done. What is our economic legacy? The 12th biggest economy after the global financial crisis, hundreds of thousands jobs saved, AAA credit rating and one of the lowest net debts in the OECD is what our legacy is. What is your legacy going to be members opposite? Is it going to be tens of thousands more unemployed? There are 40,000 more people in employment queues since this rotten first Abbott budget. It is an atrocious record so far, and one of which this government ought to be ashamed.

What about consumer confidence? We know that this government's first rotten budget smashed consumer confidence. Consumer sentiment is down 13 per cent since the election. Unfortunately, it is what economists have come to expect of this government, with Westpac's chief economist saying in November: 'This is an unsurprising but still disappointing result.' They are not surprised that you lot are smashing consumer confidence; they are just very, very disappointed. It is a shocking first budget, it is an unfair budget and it is damaging the Australian economy—and you ought to be ashamed.

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