Jenny Ware (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this motion, but not in support of the motion. I do acknowledge, certainly, as the Prime Minister has reminded us in recent days, that there have now been 10 months of this Albanese Labor government. In the lead-up to the election in May last year, Labor made many promises. The Prime Minister has recently said that Australians have had a good 10 months. I am yet to meet a single Australian who has said that he or she has had a good 10 months. Nobody in my electorate of Hughes has had a good 10 months; nobody has said that to me and I have no doubt that nobody will say that to me, because, in the last 10 months, we have had nine consecutive rate increases under this government—a rate of rises that we haven't seen in 30 years. We now have a cash rate sitting at 3.6 per cent. For the average Australian mortgage holder—and 30 per cent of those in my electorate hold mortgages—they are now paying, on average, $1,700 a month more, which is $20,000 a year they have to find after tax. These are not Australians saying to me that they have had a good 10 months, and the next 10 months are not looking any better at all.

I want to talk specifically about things like electricity. There are no Australians that I have met or who have spoken to me who have said that their electricity has gone down by the $275 that was promised by this Labor government in the lead-up to the election. Instead, we've seen massive increases in power prices and no plan to address those increases.

Particularly in my home state of New South Wales, Australians are now paying $564 a year more than we were before the election in May of last year. Only on the weekend, when I went and bought my coffee at the Bianco Nero cafe in Gymea, adjoining my electorate, the owner, George, said to me that he is now paying $50,000 a year in electricity—that's for a small cafe in the suburbs of Sydney. And that is not sustainable for a small business.

Then we can look at franking credits. Labor promised, in the lead-up to the election, that there'd be no change to franking credits. They saw in 2019 what happens if you tell Australians that you're going to make changes to their franking credits. So this time around they said, 'We're not making any changes,' but then, as soon as they got in, there was a backflip, and now we've got changes to franking credits. This impacts a lot of self-funded retirees—a lot of older Australians, and it's older Australians that the government said they have come in to try and assist. Well, they're not assisting them in my electorate or throughout Australia.

Talking of broken promises, let's look at superannuation. Superannuation belongs to the superannuant holder. They have earned the money over the years, and it is their money. It is not for the federal government to get into power on promises like, 'We're not touching your superannuation,' and then to come in and start making changes. In particular, the current Prime Minister, on 2 May 2022, said:

We've said we have no intention to make any super changes.

Jim Chalmers, our current Treasurer, said:

Look, we've said about superannuation that we would maintain the system.

That was in March 2022, on the ABC Insiders program. And then what happened? They're in power and suddenly running a little bit short of money, so they're coming after the money of Australian workers.

Then we can look at Australian families. I've already spoken about electricity bills. I would like to find the Australian families that have had this good 10 months that the Prime Minister's speaking about.

I note the injections from the other side. I'm sure that the member's going to point to quite a few Australians who are telling us what a good 10 months they have had. When Labor comes into power, they break their promises. We always pay more under a Labor government.

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