Andrew Charlton (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Here we go! I was hoping he was going to interrupt, and so he has! Why not directly subsidise food? Here we go! This is terrific! I'm lovin' it—'directly subsidise food' from the member for Bradfield. He's showing his little socialist streak there: the direct subsidisation of food. That's not what we propose, because not only is it socialism—although it's interesting to hear that from the member for Bradfield—but it would also in fact create even more problems for many Australians. Remembering that we have an inflation problem that those opposite left us with, we don't want to subsidise food directly. We want to find targeted interventions and that help people out but do not increase the CPI and make inflation even worse. Not only did they leave us with an inflation problem but they also left us high and rising interest rates. That means that, unfortunately, we have to be a little bit more targeted and nuanced than just subsidising food.

That's exactly what this government has done—

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