James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to address this matter of public importance, a matter that is probably the most important thing that is facing households and businesses in our economy right now: the spiralling cost of living.

The starkest figure in the economy right now is the gap between inflation and wages growth. Under this government, inflation has now reached 7.3 per cent and, for the same period, the ABS indicates that wages are increasing by 3.1 per cent. Wages growth is less than half of the inflation rate. That is absolutely diabolical. Wages have never been deteriorating more quickly—going back to the 1990s recession—than they are now under this Labor government. The inflation rate of 7.3 per cent is predicted by the government's own budget to go up to eight per cent. They've had the embarrassing circumstance of moving too prematurely self-congratulating motions about increases to the minimum wage of a little over five per cent when inflation, of course, was then revealed to be in the sixes and now the sevens. The Fair Work decision of increasing the minimum wage is actually decreasing the minimum wage in real terms because inflation is running higher than that increase. That is nothing to be proud of; that is something to be absolutely ashamed of. And that is happening on this government's watch.

While real wages are declining at their fastest rate in decades, we've got electricity prices predicted to go up at their fastest rate in decades. Over the next two years, there will be a 56 per cent increase in electricity prices. Of course, this is in an environment where the government went to the last election saying they were going to reduce electricity prices. This is now becoming the totemic great fraud that was inflicted upon the people of this country at the last election. The Labor opposition said they would reduce electricity prices by $275. Instead, the budget they released, a mere few weeks ago, told the truth and exposed that lie. Far from going down by 18 per cent, which is the percentage of the $275 from that costings document—the poor RepuTex people will never recover from being associated with that piece of Labor Party fraud and propaganda—the reality is that prices are going up by 56 per cent. So there's only a 74 per cent gap in all of that, which is regrettable to the people that trusted the Labor Party not to lie to them in an election campaign. That was a very reasonable thing for the people of Australia to assume. They'll learn their lesson. But, if someone is going to make such a significant commitment to their household budget and say, 'Vote for us. Your power prices will come down by 18 percent,' it's not unreasonable in our democracy for people to believe that.

Apparently, we're going to have truth-in-advertising laws. This is going to put some people at Labor Party headquarters in a lot of trouble in the future, because, if the Labor Party lies in an election campaign, there'll be a law against it. So I look forward to looking at what significant punitive measures are going to be encapsulated in any legislative framework for a scenario where a major political party makes a promise and then breaks it in such spectacular fashion—and on one of the most significant things that people are concerned about: their household budget.

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