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

So we're making jokes and interjecting about cost of living. Says it all! Condiments—they're things that people pay for every day. When you're doing it tough, vegemite on toast is probably all you can afford for breakfast. So it is serious. If you want to interject and laugh, that's exactly the point. You don't get it. You don't understand, because you haven't had to live the situation where you have to choose.

So condiments are important and strawberry jam is important because the farmers of Casey are able to sell their seconds to that company that can manufacture them. I met with them yesterday. Their energy bills have gone up $200,000 in the last 12 months. The Minister for Climate Change and Energy can sit here and talk about how great he is, but guess what. The policy is not working. It's gone up $200,000 in 12 months. The next bit that's coming for that business is that they'd signed a good contract on gas, and that's about to finish. They're projecting another $200,000 increase in their gas bill.

So we're interjecting again. It's a laughing matter that businesses are struggling. I'll tell you what. I've worked in food manufacturing. If you don't have gas, you can't make the products. You need gas. It's not an option. You have a to spend that.

What happens for these food manufacturers is that raw materials go up. The jars are going up. The finished product is going up, and the Australian people are paying more. And gas prices are going up. There are not any solutions from this government, because they're not working.

A government member: There's a war in Ukraine. What do you want us to do?

It always comes back to politics with this government. Every time you think of cost of living, the Australian people need to remember the quote from the Australian National Secretary of the ALP, Paul Erickson, when he addressed the ALP party room. Someone was nice enough to leak that to the media. He said, 'You must look like you are responding first and foremost.' That's the devil in the detail: 'look like'. He didn't tell the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the ministers that they should solve Australia's cost-of-living crisis. He said they needed to look like they were solving it. That's what this government is all about.

In the 30 seconds I've got left, I say we already know manufacturing is struggling but we also know Australians are struggling with their real wages going backwards in this high-inflation environment that is being fuelled by this government. Bill Evans, the Westpac chief economist, points to this budget as being more expansionary and stimulatory than any of the budgets in the 10 years prior to the pandemic. At a time when budgets should be reducing inflation, this budget is driving inflation and causing the cost of goods to go up. (Time expired)

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