David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This budget has entirely destroyed any credibility held by this government across so many different areas, but nowhere more so than in the most crucial of areas, the cost of living. Within the cost of living, there is no issue of more significance to Australian families than the cost of electricity and power. That's just the reality, and this government has consistently misled the Australian people, over a significant period of time when in opposition, about what it was going to do on electricity prices. It was entirely false before the election and we know now just how entirely false all those statements were, because they have been talking about this $275 a lot, right up until a crucial date in May, which was, of course, the election. If you read the Powering Australia plan and, sadly, I've done that, right there on the first page is, 'We will save households $275 on their electricity prices.' That's clearly not true, but it is on page 1 of the Powering Australia plan.

The Prime Minister wrote an op-ed in the Daily Mail, trying to reach as many people as possible. A lot of people read the Daily Mail. That op-ed says, 'We'll save you $275 on your power prices.' Not true. The Treasurer went to his local paper—I'm sure it's his local paper—My City Logan. I'm sure he takes very seriously the commitments he makes to MyCity Logan. On 15 Mayhe had a list of great things he was going to do but the very first one he said was, 'We'll invest in cleaner and cheaper energy through our Powering Australia policy to cut power bills by $275.' The people of Logan were told that very clearly by the Treasurer.

Then, perhaps most significantly of all, at the National Press Club a few days before the election—the Prime Minister was there, all the journalists were there and it was live on television—the centrepiece of the Prime Minister's speech was saving households $275 a year. They are just a few of the 97 occasions on which this occurred. But the weird thing is, and this is really interesting, on 12 July the Prime Minister gave a speech about energy to the Sydney Energy Forum. It was a really long speech, 2,300 words. But, oddly, two months after the election, no mention of the $275. It's very strange because they were so proud of this policy and they talked about it 97 times before the election then after the election, it became the policy that dare not speak its name. We know why, because it wasn't true, it was never true. They knew it wasn't true but they said it over and over.

We learn in the budget that electricity prices are going to rise by more than 50 per cent over the next two years. That is going to smash Australian families. It is a massive increase. Gas prices are up by more 40 per cent. We're talking about hundreds and hundreds of dollars every quarterly bill for Australian families, which is very different to prices coming down. This is a massive betrayal by the Prime Minister and the Treasurer.

The government was going to get real wages moving again too. Remember that? It was all going to be good after the election but the budget, again, says the opposite thing. It says that real wages are going to go down. Then to counter that inconvenient truth, the Treasurer and the member for Watson say, 'No, what we're going to do is reintroduce pattern bargaining, embed the ACTU into just about every workplace in Australia and that's going to sort out this issue.' That will be like going back to the 1970s and not in a good way. Not the Lillee and Thomson good aspect of the '70s; the bad aspects of the '70s.

This is a huge problem which is hitting people very hard because this is about the most fundamental issue of the cost of living. With all this going on, it's weird in the budget papers that the Treasurer found time to have a chapter called 'Measuring what matters'. He tells us that in 2023 there is going to be a measuring what matters statement, 'An important next step in facilitating a more informed and inclusive policy dialogue on how to improve the quality of life of all Australians.' We have got to wait until 2023. I am sure it's going to be wonderful! But here are some tips: tell them the truth, do something about the cost of living, don't say something that's wrong 97 times and try to act with integrity in public office.

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