Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Dunkley has stepped up and moved this motion. Sitting here this morning, I've had the opportunity to listen to the members opposite, and you can see virtually all, if not all, those members reading off the government talking points. There is such a stark contrast between those members opposite reading the talking points and members on this side of the House, who have spent the non-parliamentary sitting weeks getting out into their electorates and talking to mums and dads and local businesses. I can tell you now, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the people of Fisher are telling me loudly, clearly and unequivocally that they are hurting under this Labor government. They are having great difficulty in making ends meet.

Why? Well, we all know about the $275 reduction in power prices that this Labor government ran with in the last election, and we know that, since the Labor government have been in the power, prices for electricity have increased by around $700 a year. That's not a $250 decrease; that's a $700 increase. Treasury's own figures estimated that power prices were going to go up 56 per cent within the next two years and that gas prices were going to have a 40 per cent increase over the next two years. That was not Andrew Wallace or any other member of the opposition saying it; that was Treasury estimating the increase in electricity and gas prices. Yet those opposite, including the Prime Minister, stood up on 97 occasions prior to the election and said: 'Vote for Labor. We'll give you a $275 reduction in electricity prices.' That is a broken promise, and it is true to form. We are seeing a pattern of conduct here.

But it's not just power prices. I note the previous speaker, the member for Corangamite, was talking about cost-of-living pressures, and power prices feed directly into those. We are seeing a pincer movement of pressures being brought to bear on Australian businesses and mums' and dads' budgets. Over the next 12 months, somewhere around 88,000 homes—88,000 mortgages—will roll over from fixed-rate mortgages onto variable rates. Now, what that's going to mean for the average mum and dad is somewhere between $16,000 and $18,000 a year that they're going to have to find to make their mortgage payments. For those like me who have been on a variable rates the whole time, it's been a steady increase over the last nine Reserve Bank meetings. Nine out of the last nine Reserve Bank meetings have increased interest rates. But the people who have been on fixed rates are going to go from somewhere around 2½ per cent to in excess of six per cent. That is going to have a dramatic impact on people's cost of living.

But it's not just peoples mortgages. It's landlords who have to make those mortgage payments. They're going to want to increase rents. They're going to have to increase rents. When mums and dads and small businesses have to pay increasing electricity prices— (Time expired)

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