Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I'm asked about small things, as they say. The fact is that those opposite like to talk about the cost of living and energy prices as if nothing happened on their watch. But the truth is that inflation, which is feeding into higher prices, had occurred before the change of government. Indeed, inflation had taken off before Labor took office. The CPI jumped 2.1 per cent in the March 2022 quarter. The highest increase, the largest quarterly rise, in this century occurred on their watch. What they also know is that energy prices were going up because the default market offer had already been handed to the government and they chose to keep it secret. They not only chose to keep it secret; they chose to introduce a special regulation to keep it secret before the election. They are the circumstances which we inherited when we came to office. Since then what we've been doing is taking action to lower prices. The action that we've taken, such as the Energy Price Relief Plan of $1.5 billion, those opposite voted against.

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