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

It's a joy to speak on this budget, on the appropriation bills. There's a lot in it and I will focus on the start, with the challenges this budget has. I note the member for McEwen had a lot of infrastructure investment in his electorate, and, clearly, the residents of Casey know it's gone straight out of the Casey electorate over to McEwen. Whether it's the Canterbury Road upgrade, the Clara Road upgrade or the $150 million Roads for the Community program, it's good that at least we know where that's gone; it's left our community and gone to the member for McEwen's, who was clearly happy. Interestingly, he mentioned the North East Link funding. My understanding from the latest reports is that program was under review—so it is interesting that a member opposite maybe has some inside information that that's going to go ahead, despite the review happening at the moment. I'm not sure what's happening there; we'll dig into that one. It's interesting that some seem to know what's happening with that review and others don't. But I digress.

I want to focus, to start with, on the top line of this budget and how it's impacting all Australians, and all residents in Casey. We all know the situation that many people in this country are going through, with this cost-of-living crisis and the high inflationary environment. Yesterday we saw the monthly inflation rate increase to 6.8 per cent. We should always remember these numbers are not just numbers on a page; they are numbers that are impacting people every day when they go to the supermarket, when they put petrol into their car, when they pay their mortgage, when they want to pay for their children's sporting fees or when they have to, tragically, take their children out of community activities because they can't afford either the fees or the transport costs, of petrol in particular, to get their children to those events. It's so important that this budget is doing everything it can, but not to hold inflation at where it is at or make it worse; it should have been a budget that would drive inflation down. We're at seven per cent, and our target band is two to three per cent. We're in an environment where we have not seen inflation this high for generations. It should be a budget that drives it down.

It's amazing when you listen to the Treasurer speak in question time. In dorothy dixers from his own side, he quotes many economists. But it all talks about how this budget, at best, will not add to inflation—and that's not his job. Of course he shouldn't be adding to inflation, at seven per cent. His responsibility should be to drive inflation down, and he's not doing that. He admits that in his own words by continuing to quote the Reserve Bank governor, economists and experts that it might not at best drive inflation up. That's the wrong aim. To start with, he completely does not understand the challenges that Australians are facing because his focus is potentially on keeping it at six or seven per cent—and we saw that yesterday with the increase to 6.8 per cent.

The Treasurer doesn't really quote Bill Evans much. Bill Evans said this budget is more expansionary, or stimulatory, than any of the budgets from the 10 years before the pandemic, when inflation was within our target band. This budget spends more and drives more growth, hence driving inflation, than any of those budgets.

We've also got to remember when we talk about this Treasurer, Dr Chalmers—he likes to be referred to as a doctor, but he's not a doctor in economics.

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