Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I love getting a lecture from the member for Hume on power prices because there's not a person in this parliament who is more responsible for the high prices that Australians are paying on their electricity bills today than the member for Hume—not one person in Australia who is more responsible for high energy prices than the member for Hume. I'm not just referring to his squalid attempt to hide from Australians the fact that, on his watch, he was approving an increase in Australia's electricity bills of 20 per cent, as bad as that was; on his watch he was personally responsible for destroying 22 of their own energy policies. Is it any wonder why Australians are paying more for energy prices today than they should be, because for our nine long years in opposition the member for Hume was responsible for white anting, undermining and ensuring that not one of the energy policies they tried to put together ever landed.

The member for Hume puts three succinct propositions before us, and I will go to each and every one of them. The first is that Australians are doing it tough, and we acknowledge that. We know Australian households are doing it tough, and inflation is higher than we want it to be. We know that, as Australians are attempting to put their household budgets together and juggling all the bills, they're doing it tough, which is why we are doing what we can in a responsible way to provide some relief for them, whether it's energy bill relief, childcare bill relief, relief on their medicines or relief in other areas. We are doing what we can in a responsible way.

The member for Moncrieff wants us to spend more but the member for Hume wants us to spend less! But we acknowledge that Australians are doing it tough; there is no doubt about that. The important thing is what you're going to do about it.

The second proposition the member for Hume puts out there, which we freely admit as well, is it has taken us more than two years—and it will take us more than two years—to fix up the diabolical mess they left us. There is absolutely no doubt it will take us more than two years to fix up the diabolical mess they left us, whether it was the skill shortage and the skills deficit they left this country in because they woefully underinvested in skills development or a very, very lazy approach to skills shortages—if we had a short-term skill shortage anywhere, we just imported people. They whinge about immigration now, but that was their skills policy for nine years; their skills policy was an immigration policy. We think we have an obligation to train Australians first and give young people leaving school today their first crack at a job. Whether it was the largest budget deficits on record—I have to say, the member for Hume was blowing a lot of hot air. Inflation is running at four per cent; that is too high, and we want to get it down. He left us with an inflation rate of six per cent. We have managed to bring inflation down by over two per cent over the last two years, but we need to get it down further; there is no doubt about it.

They lecture us about spending. I ask members of the House to consider this: their last budget was handed down in March 2022. When inflation was running at six per cent, they handed down a budget in March 2022 with a $78 billion deficit. I'll say that again: with six per cent inflation running into an election, they handed down a budget with a $78 billion deficit. They want to lecture us about fiscal rectitude. These are the doctors of drongo economics. They lecture us about a responsible budget. We have taken over the last two years the necessary steps—

The high priest of drongo economics, the eponymous member for Barker, has got a lot to say over there.

See this speech in context