James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Government Waste Reduction) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to start by thanking the member for Forde for bringing this important motion to the chamber for us to have the chance to debate it this morning. Unfortunately, for two years now, we have had this ongoing debate in this chamber. I have spoken on many similar motions about the cost of living, hoping that our government will take it seriously and do something tangible and concrete to address the terrible pressures that Australian families and small businesses are under. Whilst the previous speaker from the government has conceded that people are doing it tough out there and that, as he goes about his electorate, the No. 1 thing he hears back from his constituents is that they are doing it tough and that cost-of-living pressures are very serious, that message is clearly not being heard by the senior leaders in his own government.

We have a situation where, for the average family, whether it is when meeting their mortgage payments or their rent, when they pay the grocery bills or when they open a letter from a utilities company, unfortunately the common feeling is: 'How am I going to meet these costs? How am I going to pay this bill? What sacrifices do we have to make in our family budget to make it stack up? The long weekend holiday at the caravan park is off now because it just doesn't fit within the family budget like it used to, because all of these other costs are going up so dramatically.'

We have seen in the last week a very concerning development where there's tension and criticism between our independent Reserve Bank and the Treasurer and the government, because that independent RBA are starting to be a little more clear with the government about the sorts of challenges that they are dealing with alone when it comes to pressures in our economy and inflation in our economy and the fact that this government is leaving the Reserve Bank to do all the heavy lifting. That is a nightmare for the average Australian because what can the Reserve Bank do? Regrettably, they have one lever and it is the cost of money in our economy. It's increasing the cash rate and therefore interest rates commensurately throughout the economy. No-one in this chamber, I expect, is aware of any family that's saying they can possibly afford to bear any further increases in interest rates. But the minutes of the RBA meeting, just last week, indicate that at that meeting they very seriously considered whether they should increase the cash rate further and have sent a very clear message that, regrettably, this government is not heeding that they might have to increase interest rates even more. That is the last thing that Australian families can possibly bear right now. They need interest rates to come down. The RBA can't do that if there is such an imbalance between monetary policy and fiscal policy in our country right now. What the RBA need is for the government to listen to them. They are independent. They are not political. They are not into game playing or messaging through the media. They are clearly, though, trying to send a message to this government that this government's policies are not supporting what the RBA is trying to do, which is fight inflation.

We have got inflation running so hot. When you compare other similar economies around the world to ours, we are running at the highest. There are a lot of pressures, unfortunately, that only indicate that pressure is upwards on inflation. This is a government that went to the last election saying it was going to ease the cost of living. Nothing but the opposite has occurred. They said that they were going to reduce electricity prices by $275. I challenge anyone to report back from a constituent that's told them that, since Labor came to power, their bill has fallen by $275. Even with a blatant blunt-force $300 energy reduction rebate on everyone's bill, no-one is anywhere near that $275 reduction. Mortgages are up dramatically. Rents are up dramatically. Average household costs, particularly for groceries, are up dramatically. Power bills and other utilities are up, up, up under this government. This is the complete opposite of what they said they would do for the Australian people at the last election.

So I thank the member for Forde for bringing this motion to the chamber, but, more importantly, I hope that this government will listen to it and finally take some concrete action to address the dramatic cost-of-living crisis that has befallen the average Australian family.

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