Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Listening to the last two speakers from the opposition, all we heard were lots of things about the cost of living. It's true that it is tough out there at the moment, and I speak to lots of my constituents about it, but I haven't heard any solutions. All this week and all this year—in fact, for the last two years—those opposite have been very good at raising the issues but not giving us solutions. Governing is a lot more than just whingeing. We know that Australians are doing it tough. I was out last week. I held four street-corner meetings. We did doorknocking and telephone polling. People are telling us that it's tough out there—it's extremely tough. That's why the priority of this Labor government is to ensure that we can assist those people and that we can help those people as much as we possibly can. We are putting things into action and have put things into action.

The opposition would let you think that the world began on 19 May 2022 and nothing existed prior to that. When we look at their track record, where was their housing policy? Where was their energy policy? There were 29, 30, 40—I don't know how many—energy policies they had. They kept on flopping and failing, therefore not putting the structure in place to allow people to invest in renewables and in energy so that we could have more players in the market to bring down prices. The only solution we've had from that side is nuclear power plants, this monstrosity that will cost billions and billions of dollars that, whether it's a private investment or whether it's a government investment, will have to be recouped from someone at some stage. Where will that money get recouped from? It will be the people that pay the energy bills—the mums and dads, the families. That shows that energy prices will absolutely skyrocket under a Liberal opposition government.

Our economic plan is a plan about helping Australians earn more and keep more of what they earn, and our policies are making a difference—there is no doubt. In the first two years of this Albanese Labor government, compensation of employees rose at its fastest two-year rate in 16 years. When we talk about compensation of employees, we're talking about wages. It's an annual average of 7.7 since the election. Prior to the election, we were going backwards, compared to 4.5 per cent under the coalition. Inflation now has a three in front of it. What was it prior to 19 May 2022? It had a six in front of it. We've nearly halved the rate of inflation, and we know that you need to keep a lid on inflation. That's what we're tackling every single day here. If that genie gets out of the box, it will absolutely destroy the lives of Australians. We know that inflation has to be managed, and that's what we're doing. We've halved it since we've been in government.

Nominal wages are growing at almost double the average of what it did under the former government. We're delivering cost-of-living relief, including tax cuts for every single taxpayer and energy bill relief for every household. I make the point: we don't want to take lectures from an opposition who left us with inflation that was rising and had a six in front of it, with real wages going backwards by 3.4 per cent, a decade of deliberate wage stagnation and suppression and tax cuts which gave more to the well off. This is their track record. They would have continued to give more to the well off had they won the last election.

These are the same people who'd have us in recession right now with less help for people on lower wages—the same people who can't tell us where their $315 billion in secret cuts are coming from and what that means for Medicare, for pensions and for the economy. We saw when they last came to government that those three items—Medicare, pensions and things in the economy—were absolutely slashed by former prime minister Abbott. These are the same people, who still don't have a credible or costed alternative economic policy well into their third year of a three-year term.

Those opposite want higher interest rates and higher inflation so no-one notices that they have no policies or credibility. They left us with much higher inflation, huge deficits, and, in the third year of a three-year term, still have no costing— (Time expired)

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