Keith Wolahan (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Shortly, we will hear from the Treasurer about the state of the economic books for the Commonwealth. That matters in two key respects. First, it directly matters to the state of household budgets and how they are doing. Second, it matters when we zoom out. I see there are schoolchildren visiting up above, and you are very welcome. It's good to see you. There's a document here that's about you. It's called the Intergenerational report. It is a report that first started in 2002, and it's designed for us in this place to look forward 40 years to see how we're doing and what the impact might be on you.

I'm sure most of you may be about 10, 11 or 12—I apologise if I got that wrong. Imagine yourselves about our age, what this economy looks like and what our country looks like. I want to briefly tell you what it looks like in the last Intergenerational report, which was done in 2023. It looked forward to 2063. On page 144, there is a graph that matters to you and that should matter to all of us. The report says that real Australian government spending per person before COVID was $22,000. Immediately after COVID it was $24,000. It's now peaking at $28,000 per person. That's a lot of money, especially when you consider that the average household, the average person, earns just over $100,000. Half of Australians earn $65,000 or less. In this document it said, if that spending is not addressed, then adjusting for inflation, when you are our age, you'll be paying $40,000 per person. Imagine you're earning $100,000, as the average wage, and $ 40,000 of that is just for what we spend here! Then there's state spending and your local government. You won't have much left over.

When the Treasurer wrote this document, 'Capitalism after the crises', published 1 February 2023, he didn't mention the Intergenerational report. Instead, he questions the fundamentals of capitalism, and how has that worked out for families? Let's test the numbers. When you look at actual family budgets right now, here in 2025, you see that average mortgage payments have gone up by 57 per cent. In the Melbourne inner city, the average mortgage is about $660,000. That is almost $19,000 worse off. If you're renting, the costs are up by 32 per cent. That's a per annum increase of almost $9,000. Groceries are up 32 per cent. When we say groceries, what do we mean by that? We mean the essentials—milk, up 18 per cent; bread, up 25 per cent; eggs, up 35 per cent. It's no wonder families are going to sleep hungry at night, it's no wonder food banks have never seen more demand, and it's no wonder families have a sense of despair that this government and this Treasurer do not have their interests at heart here and now.

From the government, we hear a selective quotation about how family budgets are actually doing. We'll hear a component part that is repeated in a way that demands gratitude in return. Looking at the increase in average wages—and there has been an increase in average wages—when you add to that the subsidies that have been given, that's a good news story, or so the government will tell you. But they're only telling you part of the picture. What they don't say is that the total cost-of-living rise for families in Australia is $24,000. That's this side of the equation. They say you should be very grateful for the subsidies that they've given, the increased wages that you have seen, which only come to $8,300. So you're down $24,000 and up $8,000, and you should be very grateful for that!

But that's not all. We have seen, as people's wages rise and they move through several different income tax brackets, them lose even more, to the point that families are now down. After the wage increases, after all the subsidies, the average family is down $10,636. Think about that. The average family in Australia is over $10,000 worse off after all of the good news that this government and this Treasurer tell you that you should be grateful for. The reason is that this government cannot live within its means. And, because it can't live within its means, it is creating a burden on families in the here and now, and it is creating an unexplainable and unjustifiable burden on you for when you are our age. So it is important that we, as a government, live within our means. If we don't, families will continue to suffer.

See this speech in context