Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would agree with the member for Hawke that the independence of the RBA is very important. It's great for him to suggest to us that we should respect their independence! I would urge him to speak to some of his colleagues who may be in the chamber and also in the caucus and ask them to maybe not verbal the independent RBA and the governor. So I thank him for that contribution. I agree that the independence of the RBA is very important, although I do need to address this standard line of political spin from the ALP that I have addressed before—the $1 trillion in debt that they like to talk about. The only challenge with that is the facts. Facts get in the way of political arguments.

The fact is that the net debt stood at $517 billion at the time this government took power, and $517 billion is a long way from $1 trillion. But we know with this government that it's all about politics and spin. I commend all those government members who stood up to talk about this because they are actually choosing to disagree with the ALP national secretary, Paul Erickson. Even their national secretary said, 'You must look like you are responding first and foremost when talking about the cost-of-living pressures.' So he even acknowledges that this government has not been focused on the cost-of-living pressures. It is really important that we listen to his words. This was his quote: 'You must look like you were responding first and foremost.' Look like? So he's not advising this government to fix or address the cost-of-living crisis. He says they need to 'look like' they're addressing it and 'look like' they're fixing it. That is the reality of this government. It is all about politics. It is all about spin. It's all about playing the game.

We've got a prime minister that's spent his whole life in this place and a treasurer who has spent his whole life in this place. The member for Menzies addressed quite well the Treasurer's focus on power, so I won't talk about that. But I will talk about the Prime Minister and his focus on power. Don't take my word for it. For my sins—it was quite an interesting article, actually, so I shouldn't say that; that's not fair—I took the time over the break to read Katharine Murphy's Quarterly Essay No. 88 from November 2022 about the Prime Minister. She spent a lot of time with him through the campaign. I think it would be fair to say that I don't think anyone in this House would disagree that, generally, the Guardian and Katharine Murphy would be more disposed to this Prime Minister than to our side. I'm going to use her quotes here. To her description of Prime Minister Albanese:

Power is his natural habitat, and he's spent a lifetime studying all its forms, covert and overt. In order of preference, Albanese is fascinated by power, politics, parliament, policy and process.

This is what the Australian people have—a prime minister that puts policy and process at the bottom of his list. This is the challenge we have. If you don't have great policies and you don't have great process, you're not going to deliver cost-of-living relief for the Australian people.

We saw that on display today. Katharine Murphy said it in November, and the Prime Minister gave us a great example of it today: when he was asked in question time about the cost of living, he insulted Australian families. He did not address the question at all, did not offer any answers for the Australian people about cost-of-living relief. What did he talk about? He talked about political process. He talked about the order people ask questions in this House. Isn't it amazing? I'll give Katharine Murphy credit; she was onto it—cost of living, and he talks about political processes. He doesn't talk about the $45 billion in off-budget spending his government has committed to, that the IMF has warned will drive inflation.

We know that if government wants to reduce inflation by around a quarter of a per cent, it needs to reduce spending by $6 billion. But we're adding $45 billion to the Australian economy in off-budget spending. That's going to be, based on those numbers, a 1.875 per cent increase in inflation—so they're driving inflation up. What's that going to do? It's going to force the independent RBA governor to increase rates. We've got the governor putting the brake on in the car and we've got this government putting the accelerator on through increased budget spending, through increased off-budget spending, all so they can play political games. (Time expired)

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