Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

There is a cost-of-living crisis. It is crippling. Those of us who move around our electorates and talk to families know that it is crippling. The government has failed to manage it. There are a number of different topics we could discuss in relation to the cost of living. I'll pick three: energy, mortgages and rents, and food. I will also say that the cost-of-living crisis is crippling and that, if Labor stay in power, it will get worse, and I will explain why.

First, energy. People were conned during the election campaign. They were told that electricity prices were going to be reduced by $275. Now, that was a huge promise during the election campaign. Who knows but there is probably a lot of people out there who believe the Prime Minister when he said it 97 times and, therefore, cast that ballot accordingly. Where does the $275 come from? It comes from modelling by a company called RepuTex, and the government has relied on that modelling to deliver this promise. I just want to quote to you what Aidan Morrison, who is the director of the energy program at the Centre for Independent Studies, said about this. He said the $275 by 2025 number is the 'absolute laughing stock' of the policy debate in Australia—the absolute laughing stock! Not only that but what he says makes us think it might get worse. He says its twin, its sibling—and he is referring to the integrated system plan—has no better analysis behind it than the same people and the same report has been elevated to become the cornerstone of our most important planning document in relation to energy. So that makes me worry that the energy crisis is going to get worse if this is what we are relying on, and there are certainly a lot of problems with the integrated system plan. The Prime Minister has to go out during this election campaign and explain why the $275 hasn't happened and what the new promise is. I would be interested to see what that is.

On mortgages and rents, the government's failure to manage inflation has meant that interest rates have stayed too high for too long. That has affected people with mortgages and it has affected people who rent properties. Core inflation is still outside the target band—still. The Treasurer gets up during question time and says it is falling. It stayed so high for so long. Just calculate what that has meant for those extra mortgage repayments over that period of time. Why has inflation stayed so high for so long, and a lot higher in Australia than comparable economies? It is because of excessive government spending. If you are going to spend, it has to be productive spending. For this government, a lot of the spending is not productive, and the state governments, particularly the one in the state where I live in Victoria, have to own a bit of that, too. It is not only spending but also the complete lack of focus on productivity. Now, when you have people who are in government who don't really understand private enterprise because of very few of them have worked in it, they probably don't understand productivity, and we've seen that play out.

The third thing I want to talk about his food. Traditionally, food has been pretty cheap in Australia. Why is that? Well, we have a great climate for growing food. We have also traditionally given farmers the tools they need to grow food. It has traditionally been a country that is small business friendly, and a lot of farms are small businesses. We have given farmers the tools they need, such as irrigation water, to grow produce such as fruit, dairy, vegetables. This government is taking those tools away. That has not only led to a crisis in confidence in investment but it is also going to get worse and is going to lead to families having to pay more at the check-out, because if you make it harder to run a farming business, prices of produce go up. What happens is people have to put their prices up or they say, 'This is too hard and I'm not farming any more.' Therefore, there are fewer people producing and there is less food. If there is less food then the laws of supply and demand say the prices are going to be higher. So families are feeling the pain of Labor's attack on agriculture at the supermarket check-out, and that is one of the key examples of this government's failure to manage the cost-of-living crisis.

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