Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Riverina is finished and wrapped up for the week, and we wish him well on his travels back to wherever he comes from.

We are here to talk about the MPI and I am so pleased that we've got all of the opposition members coming in to support the shadow Treasurer. Look at them all there! Hundreds of them coming in to support the shadow Treasurer. But the shadow Treasurer's not here to support himself on the MPI. The shadow Treasurer is so committed to his own MPI he didn't even turn up to it. Anyway, we move on. It is a bit hard to take seriously the shadow Treasurer, when he comes in here and talks about inflation, because the shadow Treasurer gets confused from time to time.

I don't mind waking up on a Sunday morning and putting a bagel in the toaster, cutting it in half, of course, and then putting a bit of butter and Vegemite on the bagel. Obviously, you need to keep an eye on the cost of Vegemite. The shadow Treasurer keeps a very close eye on the cost of Vegemite. The shadow Treasurer is a real student on the cost of Vegemite. He's learning about the cost of Vegemite every single day. He's smearing Vegemite all over the place.

Here's a quote from the shadow Treasurer. He said, 'In the last month alone'—that's an important part of the quote; I'll come back to it—'the price of Vegemite has increased by eight per cent, peanut butter by nine per cent and yoghurt by 12 per cent.' That would be alarming had it been happening in the last month. Unfortunately for the shadow Treasurer, he's getting confused between one month and one year.

It wasn't just us taking a little bit of a shock to the fact that the shadow Treasurer is getting confused between his months and his years; it was also those great Labor defenders at Sky News who were shocked by the fact that the shadow Treasurer—the head bean counter from the opposition—was unable to work out the difference between a month and a year. Andrew Clennell called it 'deeply embarrassing' that he couldn't do it. Sky News had a headline saying that there was a monumental gaffe and that it bemuses colleagues. You can just imagine the shadow cabinet: 'Oh, no!'

Angus Taylor had an absolute nightmare when he came in and said that Vegemite was going up by eight per cent in a month. There was another great headline about the shadow Treasurer: 'Angus Taylor slammed for deeply embarrassing Vegemite claim in parliament'. This is the man leading their charge on inflation. You could take them seriously if they came into this place and put their money where their mouth is.

These people opposite like to come in here and complain about the price of energy, yet they vote against lowering the cost of energy. These people come into this place and complain about the cost of housing, yet they come in here and vote against the construction of more housing to bring down the cost of housing and increase its supply. These people come in here and complain about the cost of living, yet at each and every turn they have opposed support payments and the lifting of the social safety net for those people who are doing it tough.

They come in here and complain about the cost of living, yet under them not one incentive, policy or effort was made to lift the wages of working Australian people—not one thing. Do you know why? It's because it was a deliberate design feature of the way in which those opposite manage the economy. They come in here and complain about the cost of living, yet they oppose every single wage rise that we on the side of the House have helped to bring in since coming into government. They complain about the cost of living, but they oppose wage rises to aged-care workers. They oppose wage rises for those on the minimum wage. They oppose a wage rise at every single chance that they get to put their money where their mouth is.

So we won't be taking lectures from those opposite. Instead of voting and using their power as representatives in this great place to help the people who are struggling with the cost of living, those opposite come in here to complain. That is their MO. They want to use every opportunity to make a political issue while we on this side of the House are going to do everything we can and use every single day we have to lower the cost-of-living pressures for the people we are privileged to represent.

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