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

I thank the member for Hume, our shadow Treasurer, for bringing this very important matter of public importance to this House's attention: the inflation crisis which this government has caused. I have sat here and heard from a minister for veterans' affairs who spent most of his time making references. He made a fairly glib reference to The West Wing. While I am very fond of Josh Lyman—one of the best characters in The West WingI think that this matter of public importance did deserve a little bit more attention and a little bit more intellectual rigour than was brought. The member for Macnamara has now spent just over three minutes referencing and quoting various other supposed quotes from the shadow Treasurer, rather than actually addressing this inflation crisis and talking about what his government, after 12 months, is actually going to do about it.

Australians are suffering. They are hurting. I have in the gallery today Mr Jack Smyth from my electorate who has come down here with his family, and what he has not heard from those opposite on the government benches are any answers as to how the government is going to address the inflation crisis. If we just look at some of the numbers and some of the facts after 12 months under the Albanese Labor government, the economy is shuddering to a halt. In the March quarter, the annual accounts show that, after a year of Labor in government, the economy is now at its slowest since September 2021, when New South Wales and Victoria were in COVID lockdowns. What answers does this government have to this crisis? So far, the answer is nothing. Because of inflation, a dollar today is worth far less than it was a year ago, and Australians around our country are grappling with mounting costs. If we look back at where we were a year ago, we are in a far worse position today on any measure, whether we are looking at mortgage repayments, gas and electricity bills, superannuation, petrol receipts or insurance premiums. These are items that people in my electorate are telling me every day are getting worse day by day and are far worse today than they were one year ago.

Even if the government does not want to listen to real people and does not want to listen to what people in my electorate are saying, let us consider what former Reserve Bank of Australia governor Dr Glenn Stevens said just last week. These are his direct words, a quote:

… inflation is … way too high …

He said that interest rates could remain elevated for some time yet. That's a direct quote from Dr Glenn Stevens. ANU economist Ashley Craig confirmed the government is making the RBA's job much harder, saying:

The present government decided to take an expansionary position … If the government's spending and taxation choices are too expansionary, the RBA must act by raising interest rates.

So there we have it from two pre-eminent economists: it is the government's budgets, the budgets of Jim Chalmers, that have led directly to the Reserve Bank having no other option but to keep increasing interest rates.

Therefore, in circumstances where real wages are stagnant, the cost of living will continue to rise, gas and electricity bills will continue to skyrocket, we're seeing that unemployment will rise, and inflation will continue to stay stubbornly high while ever the government continues with the same budgetary problems and budgetary issues that we've seen delivered in October last year and in May of this year. The budget, therefore, has failed Australians at a time when they needed a government that's focused on fighting inflation.

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