Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

There is a lot of despair in my community and, I know, in a lot of communities around our whole country at the moment about the cost-of-living crisis in this country. These are not my figures—they come from a lot of independent organisations—but the average family in Australia over the last 2.5 years is now $35,000 a year worse off than they previously were. Now, $20,000 of that increased cost, as you would understand, Deputy Speaker—as we would all understand—is the increase in mortgage costs on the average mortgage of an Australian family. The other $10,000 is an increase in groceries and energy bills. It has been the biggest fall in disposable income in over 60 years, all overseen by this hapless government.

What has the government been doing to correct this? Unfortunately, very little. In fact, they have made it a lot worse with some of their reckless spending—the water buybacks for the Murray-Darling Basin which made food and water more expensive—and with their reckless renewable energy policy that will make energy costs as well more expensive. They are focused on things like the Voice. They have been focused for the last week on things like the misinformation bill; they need to get back to focusing on the cost of living for Australian families.

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