David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Everywhere I look, the cost of living is hurting families in my electorate and around Australia. All the fundamental costs that families and individuals face seem to be going up. The pressure that families and businesses are under because of what this government has done is unbelievable. They start thinking that subsidising processes that drive the economy will make the fundamentals cheaper. But no amount of subsidy will make the fundamentals cheap if we create shortages. At the source of many things in the economy, the basics are food production, clothing production, manufacturing and energy costs. All of those are going up.

You've only got to look at what our inflation figures are. The current inflation rate in Australia of 3.8 per cent is remarkably not budging, and that is because we have a lot of extra government spending subsidising industries like the energy system, which is getting huge subsidies, making our electricity system unreliable and expensive. They're subsidising more and more renewable energy. You've only got to look at the subsidy-go-round. There are certificate values for large-scale generation of $4 billion a year. Along with the small-scale subsidies we've got $19 billion of Rewiring Australia subsidies baked in. We've got subsidies for batteries. We've got subsidies, through interest rates that governments are paying, for green energy bonds.

The irony of it is that we are now subsidising, in New South Wales and Victoria, coal plants to not close. Their business cases have been destroyed by the market rules which restrict them operating because of renewable energy targets. But, hey presto, people have got to realise that this mantra we've heard day in, day out that renewables are the cheapest form of energy only refers to the generation cost at the solar panel or at the wind turbine. It doesn't include the levelised full system costs of energy—the extra costs of all the subsidies, the extra costs of all the batteries, the extra costs of all the poles and wires for the grid and the extra costs of the backup systems that you need because solar only generates 20 per cent of the time. It's got to have a gas plant or a coal plant just sitting there waiting for if the sun stops shining or when it's night-time. So you've got multiple other system costs which mean the costs of the electricity from a renewable based system, once it gets to your power point and onto your bill, are totally different from the generation cost. We need a system cost cost so people understand the full cost.

Look at the cost of cars. The new EV push has put a system in place, through fuel standards, that's putting the cost of a Toyota RAV4 up at least $11,000. Even a cheap Chinese MG is going to go up $12,000. The cars that all the tradesmen drive—HiLuxes and Ford Rangers are two of the biggest selling vehicles in Australia—have gone up: $17,900 for a Ford Ranger and $14,500 for a HiLux.

Insurance is going up. Mortgage repayments are going up. There are these huge mortgages in the cities. People are having to pay up to $30,000 more because of this loose government spending without any productivity growth. The economy's growing because we've got unbridled immigration. There's a shortage of housing that's exacerbated by too many migrants, way more than our housing can provide for. Everywhere you turn, costs are up.

We need a change of government. At the election next year we'll get back to fundamentals. We're going to make the fundamentals cheap and get tax cuts in that mean we don't have people paying more tax. We're going to bring back the original stage 3 tax cuts and get rid of the 32½ per cent tax rate so people are paying 30 per cent only up until they get to $200,000. Then they'll have enough income to pay their way and get ahead again. (Time expired)

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