Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the matter of public importance raised by the member for Hume. Due to an indiscretion, I wasn't here in person to see the member for Hume's speech, so I got to watch it from up in my office. When you're sitting watching someone speak, you're invariably drawn to the people behind the speaker in the frame. The member for Hume had 10 minutes to talk about cost-of-living issues. He spent a lot of time talking about Labor reshuffles. It was quite bizarre. He chose the topic of public importance and then spoke about Labor reshuffles like that was the most important thing.

As I was sitting there, watching the member for Hume and then being drawn to the people in the frame behind him, it was a great lesson in body language. If you're ever unfortunate enough to be thrown out under 94(a)—it does happen to some of us. I was watching the body language of the backbenchers behind the member for Hume, and it was like a lesson in the phrase: 'Oh my God. What have we done?' They were sitting there on the backbench saying, 'This guy is in front of me.'

In terms of reshuffles, the member for Hume is calling for a Labor reshuffle, offering commentary on a Labor reshuffle. Obviously, the member for Dickson, the Leader of the Opposition, needs to do some serious reshuffling. My 15-year-old has more economic credibility than the member for Hume. I hope you're not listening to this, Leo. But, seriously, we saw it in question time today—issue after issue after issue where the member for Hume has been rolled.

We know that the way to assist Australians is to help them out during a cost-of-living crisis. We do know that. We know that people are doing it tough, and we don't just stand around and say: 'Oh, gee! Times are tough.' We are actually doing those practical things so that, from the next pay packet that the people in my electorate receive, they'll get some assistance. We know, when it comes to their power bills, whether they're an individual household or a small business, that they'll receive some benefit from us. And I do note that the Labor government in Queensland has given an extra $1,000. The previous speaker is a Queensland MP. He forgot to mention that the Queensland Labor government's giving people a $1,000 cut on their power bills.

The member for Casey's speech was a little bit bizarre in that he just read out an essay that Andrew Charlton, the member for Parramatta, wrote years ago. But the previous speaker was talking about inflation as if it magically occurred. I remember the last coalition budget. Inflation was running hot, so they just got a big bucket of lighter fluid, squirted it down the bottom and said, 'Look at that fire go!' A change of government happens, and then they're saying, 'Geez, there's a lot of smoke and flames; the economy is in trouble when it comes to inflation,' as if we could put it out overnight just by electing a Labor government. That's not how inflation works. It takes a long time to get inflation under control. Labor understand that, because Labor people are the ones who suffer most when it comes to inflation.

It is heading in the right direction. We know that people have less money to spend, effectively, if they're a pay-as-you-go person, and many of them are the people that we have targeted our tax packages to. They're the people that we're trying to give energy relief. These are all things that we're doing to make sure that we get inflation under control. The last budget of the coalition was a disaster when it came to getting the economy under control and left us with a trillion dollars in debt, effectively, throughout any lingering soupcon of economic credibility leftover from the Howard years. It was all gone.

An honourable member: 'None' soupcons left! Zero soupcons!

I defer to my French-speaking colleague in the chamber in terms of pronunciation! But what did they have in terms of economic credibility? All they had was a bunch of mugs! A bunch of mugs—that was it.

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