Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

'That's right,' I hear from the member for Corangamite. It's Struggle Street at the moment for many people who, when they go to the supermarkets, are finding it tough to pay for their groceries. When they go to the bowser, they're finding it difficult to pay for their fuel. When they get their electricity bill in the mail, they are finding it very, very difficult to be able to afford that, like a constituent who wrote to me. I'm not sure whether this person is necessarily a Nationals voter. She's in the Riverina, and I'm sure she probably may well be, but she writes: 'As you know, Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised to cut power bills by $275 for households by 2025 at the last election. He isn't making good on his promise. I am urging you to hold Mr Albanese to account. I opened my electricity bill for this quarter and was shocked to find it had more than doubled—more than doubled. I hold no faith in renewable energy sources, and alternative policy on energy needs to be prosecuted more broadly now. We need to consider nuclear energy.'

That's just one view. It may not be shared by everybody in this chamber right here and right now, but it is indicative of what many people on Struggle Street in regional Australia and elsewhere are now encountering with their power bills. The now Prime Minister, when he was the Leader of the Opposition, promised on 94 occasions no less that there would be a $275 power bill cut. Where is it? I notice they've all gone quiet. I would ask the members opposite: where is that $275? Where is that power bill cut? Inflation has just gone up and up, and it's gone up and up on the watch of those opposite. It has indeed. The latest CPI data shows inflation is still running rampant at six per cent. That is making it so tough. You only have to read the Daily Telegraph online today:

Sydney home prices could end up 2023 up to $60,000 higher than they were at the start of the year as the ongoing housing market recovery continues, new modelling has revealed.

We hear those opposite talking about their policy—whether it's costed or uncosted matters not—and the amount of money, billions upon billions of dollars, that is going to go into this housing proposal they've got before the Senate. They talk about 30,000 homes. It was a million not that long ago, and now it has gone down to 30,000. Irrespective of whether it's thousands or in the order of hundreds of thousands, you can't find people to build houses to save yourself, let alone building supplies.

We're joined by the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury. I'm glad he walked in. I won't be too hard on him, because it's his birthday. Happy birthday to the member for Fenner! Last week he got into the writing stakes—just like the Treasurer, who wrote the thesis, the epistle, on re-energising and remaking capitalism. It puts Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace to shame. It was a great piece.

The member for Fenner has written an op-ed. To quote Michelle Grattan:

… an assistant minister in the Albanese government, has launched a swingeing attack on the stranglehold the factional "duopoly" has on the Labor Party.

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