Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Brisbane proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The failure of the Government's Budget to immediately address the cost of living crisis and rising inequality.

I call upon those honourable members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Stephen Bates (Brisbane, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a privilege to represent my electorate of Brisbane. It extends from the suburbs of Paddington in the west, through the CBD, New Farm and Lutwyche, and out to Hamilton in the east. We are a diverse electorate that large populations of people from across the world have decided to call home. I'm proud of our large multicultural population and our huge diversity of families, young professionals and students. We are a young electorate, with the second-largest population of under-35s of any electorate in Australia.

All of us across the Brisbane electorate hear a lot about a cost-of-living crisis, and none of us have to look too far to see the impacts of it. We talk to our friends, our families and our communities, and it is hard to deny the simple fact that the economy is just not working for everyone. Whether it's petrol prices, rent rises, mortgage repayment hikes or spending more on food and essentials, everyone is feeling the pinch. Stories are emerging of people seeing their rents increased by 60 per cent. In the building I call home, my neighbours have experienced hikes of $280 per week for their rent. I've been told stories of community members seeing increases of as much as $400 per week. People are so afraid of their leases expiring, because of the almost guaranteed exorbitant increases to their rents which will either force them to try and find a home in an already tight housing market or, in some cases, force them into homelessness. We've had Brisbane locals come to us for help in the most dire of situations because they felt like they had nowhere else to turn. These are people who have been living in their carports, couch surfing or even living in their cars with their service animals.

This budget tells my home community of Brisbane that the government knows we are in a cost-of-living crisis but that my electorate just has to wait. But this budget does not tell everyone they have to wait, because the fossil fuel companies receiving $40 billion in subsidies don't have to wait; the one in three large companies who don't pay any tax don't have to wait; and the government MPs giving themselves a $9,000-a-year tax cut don't have to wait. This budget tells us that the needs of gas companies to rake in enormous and excessive profits are more important than the needs of struggling families. That is why this matter is of such public importance.

If we are to address the cost-of-living crisis, we must change the rules of the game that led us here. We must understand that the same thinking that got us into this mess is not going to get us out. We need to create an economy and a society that put people ahead of profit. What is going to get us out of this cost-of-living crisis is investing in essential public services and making them universally accessible. Getting dental into Medicare, making child care universal, wiping student debt and investing in 100-per-cent publicly owned renewable energy and green jobs—these are all policies that would dramatically and tangibly improve people's lives, and that is what government should be about.

Make no mistake: the reason we don't have these services is because the government would rather give handouts to the same companies that contributed to the climate-change-induced floods that devastated my electorate. We don't have these services because the government is committed to giving $254 billion in tax cuts to the wealthiest people in our country, with 65 per cent of that money going to the top one per cent of earners. This budget's priorities are wrong. If we are to truly address the cost-of-living crisis and the structural inequalities that we face in this country, we need bold action. Bandaid solutions and tinkering around the edges are not going to cut it. People in our communities will continue to hurt until governments start writing budgets that finally value people over profits.

Andrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is certainly true that in Australia we have a strong egalitarian ethos. Ours is a country where many people would prefer to sit in the front seat of a taxi, where we prefer to use the word 'mate' rather than 'sir', where we don't have private areas on the beaches and where most people don't stand up when the Prime Minister enters the room. Yet, over recent generations, we've seen a steady rise in inequality. As Thomas Piketty outlined in his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, we've seen, across the advanced world, an increase in the share of the top one per cent of income earners. We've seen an increase in the share of the top 0.1 per cent of income earners, tripling since the early 1980s. We have seen CEO pay increase far faster than an average worker's pay. Work by Tomas Kennedy and Peter Siminski asks the pertinent question: for Australians born in successive generations, what's the chance that they earned more than their parents? For Australians born in the 1950s, 84 per cent earned more than their parents. For Australians born in the 1980s just 68 per cent earned more than their parents.

We've seen a fanning out of real wages since 1975. Since 1975, wages at the 10th percentile have grown in real terms by 33 per cent. Wages at the median have grown by 55 per cent. But wages at the 90th percentile have grown by 81 per cent. That is, earnings are growing nearly three times as fast for the highest paid as for the lowest paid. Work done by Treasury, which I highlighted in a recent Gruen lecture, shows that market concentration has risen. The biggest firms have a larger slice of the pie than they did in decades past. Mark-ups have increased—the gap between what firms charge and their costs has grown. Under the former governments we saw the JobKeeper scheme funnel some $20 billion of taxpayer money to firms with rising revenues, some of which used that taxpayer money to pay executive bonuses.

So the issue of inequality is a real one. It is an issue that matters deeply to those of us on this side of the House. My Labor colleagues and I got into politics because we care deeply about inequality. Indeed, it's one of the classic divides between left and right. But it's pretty ironic that the member who moved this MPI has chosen to do so on a day on which the House is debating the secure jobs, better pay bill—a bill brought to this House by a government that won a mandate at the last election to get real wages going again, to narrow the gender pay gap and to provide more flexibility for workers who want to combine caring duties with employment.

The very first act of the Albanese Labor cabinet was to approve a submission to Fair Work Australia which saw the minimum wage increased by 5.2 per cent. We made a submission to Fair Work Australia that saw aged-care workers win a 15 per cent pay rise. We on this side of the House care deeply about the fact that under the coalition real wages fell. That's right: in a decade real wages were lower at the end of the coalition's time in office than they were at the start. That is an indictment on the former government.

Inequality also manifests itself in home ownership. Back in 1991, among baby boomers aged 25 to 39 we saw a reasonable share owning their own homes outright. Among millennials of the same age in the most recent census, the chance that they would own their own home outright had fallen by two thirds. Housing is, to a large extent, a supply challenge, which is why we went to the last election announcing our Housing Australia Future Fund, which would build some 30,000 social and affordable homes. It's why the Treasurer stood at this dispatch box on budget night, pledging a National Housing Accord which would see us work with the states, territories and private sector to build some one million homes.

When I'm out with my street stalls, one of the most common issues that constituents will come to me about is housing and their inability to break into the housing market. Yet if you're in Victoria then you'll be well aware of the Greens allying with their coalition colleagues in 2017 to overturn Labor's plans to rebuild public housing in Ashburton. Victorians would be aware, too, of the Greens-dominated council, the City of Yarra, rejecting last year a state government proposal for social housing around the Collingwood Town Hall. It would have seen 200 units constructed, 100 of them for social housing, but it was rejected because they were uncomfortable with the involvement of a commercial property developer. Then, just weeks ago, we saw the Greens threatening to block the Albanese government's $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund in the Senate. If they had, they would have blocked 30,000 new properties for vulnerable Australians over the next five years. So you see from the Greens the approach which was so beautifully epitomised in the latest issue of the Wharf Revue, which I highly recommend to those watching the MPI today: all care and no responsibility.

From the latest budget, we've got measures being brought down by this government to reduce the cost of medicines, reducing the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme maximum co-pay to $30. That's important because we know it is lower income Australians who are more likely to use the healthcare system. If the members on the crossbench want to talk about the budget and inequality, they just need to look at those important reforms to reduce the cost of medicines.

And then there's the important investment in education. In the latest budget, we announced some 20,000 additional university places targeted at students from low-SES backgrounds, Indigenous Australians, those who are first in their family and those from regional Australia. We're prioritising those groups because we recognise the transformative power of education. Indeed, it is the life story for so many of my Labor colleagues. We've also announced hundreds of thousands of fee-free TAFE places because we know it's crucial to reducing earnings inequality by increasing the educational opportunities for Australians. Claudia Goldin and Larry Katz describe inequality as 'a race between education and technology'. At a time when technology is advancing, it's absolutely vital to have a government that is investing in our education system, that is expanding opportunities through vocational education and universities in order to ensure that Australians have a shot in the labour market.

Gender equity too was at the heart of our budget. We prioritised cheaper child care, a reform that is absolutely critical to closing the gender pay gap. We have been prioritising the implementation of the Respect@Work reforms, recognising, as my former colleague Deborah Cobb-Clark has noted, the way in which sexual harassment in the workplace can hold women back from advancement and widen the gender pay gap. And we're investing in women's safety and women's economic security, recognising the critical importance for Australian workplaces and for all Australians, men or women, to have safer workplaces.

The latest budget was brought down in the teeth of some of the highest levels of inflation we had seen, and a hallmark of the budget was the way in which it dovetailed with the work of the Reserve Bank. An unfunded cash splash would have merely driven up interest rates, hurting the very people we care most about and making more entrenched the problem of inflation and the challenge the Reserve Bank is fighting right now. And yet, extraordinarily, the member who moved this MPI is part of a party that is working to scrap Reserve Bank independence. As independent scholars have noted, if the Greens' policy proposal had its way, it would lead to capital flight from Australia. It would be enormously damaging for the macroeconomy.

We on this side of the House recognise the importance of working with the Reserve Bank. We are passionate about reducing inequality and we are proud, pro-growth progressives.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Inflation is soaring, the cost of living is rising and power bills are set to spike. Meanwhile, coal and gas corporations are making massive profits while one in four Australians are struggling to make ends meet. I was excited to join my Victorian Greens colleagues last week to call on the government to freeze electricity bills at precrisis levels for two years. This vital cost-of-living relief would be funded by making these greedy energy companies—who are making massive profits—pay. This would save an average household over $750.

In the Victorian state electorates of Melbourne and Richmond, which make up large parts of my federal electorate of Melbourne, hundreds of volunteers have been out having conversations with people in the lead-up, and we're hearing one thing clearly: people are doing it tough. We've heard from parents who are worried about how they'll afford their energy bills while putting food on the table for their kids. We've spoken to young people unable to afford a place to rent and terrified of getting kicked out of their home by asking for basic rights from their landlords. Over half the people in Melbourne and Richmond are renters. Wages are flatlining, but rents are rising at record rates. Renters need better rights. We need to freeze rents, build more affordable homes and ban political donations from big property developers. More Greens in the Victorian parliament will kick the Liberals out and hold Labor to account and push them to deliver the urgent cost-of-living relief that is needed, and to do that ahead of corporate profiteering. It is time to freeze rents and freeze power bills, so people can start to make ends meet.

To tackle inequality, we're going to have to take on some of the big vested interests in the country that seem to have this government in their pockets. Because while there was nothing in this budget about freezing rents and while there was nothing to deliver immediate relief for people dealing with soaring energy prices, what this government did find its way to include in the budget was at least $40 billion of subsidies to the very same coal and gas corporations that are driving the climate crisis and that are contributing to the energy crisis that we're seeing.

If you were to do one thing in your budget to tackle inequality, it wouldn't be to give over a quarter of a trillion dollars of public money to politicians and billionaires and the wealthiest people in this country—to give them a $9,000 a year tax cut per year, every year, forever. This budget had the potential to deliver immediate cost-of-living relief in a lasting way to people right across this country, such as by getting dental into Medicare and dealing with the fact that the average household spends about $1,000 every year going to the dentist, and some just don't go at all because they can't afford it. They could make child care free for everyone and deal with those massive costs that people are facing. We could wipe student debt. We could build affordable homes. These are the things that are on the table if you don't give a quarter of a trillion dollars of public money to Clive Palmer and billionaires and politicians for tax cuts that, frankly, they don't need. That is why this budget did not put in place free dental as part of Medicare, free child care to people or wipe student debt. It's because the government prioritised giving tax cuts to politicians and billionaires instead and handed out $40 billion in subsidies to the very corporations that are driving the climate crisis.

I heard the minister talk about their housing plan. Under their housing plan, the waiting list for social housing is going to be longer at the end than it was at the beginning. They say, 'We're going to build a million houses over the next five years.' Well about 975,000—close to a million—were built in the last five years and look at the situation we're in at the moment. We need government to step in and help to freeze rents. We need government to step in and build public housing that people who are doing it tough can move into. And it's got to be affordable housing. Contracting it all out, as the government is doing, to the property developers and just hoping that they might do something that is affordable is not an answer. People need relief from rent rises now. People need a rent freeze now. We need to do something about electricity bills now.

The Greens have a costed plan to freeze rents for two years and make the big corporations who are engaging in wartime profiteering from the energy crisis pay for it. That way, we can deal with the cost of living crisis while also making big corporations pay their fair share.

Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If only there were quick fixes. If only it was easy to just snap your fingers, change a circumstance that's been developing over many years and somehow magically it would all be fixed. But we don't live in fairyland on this side of the House. We deal with the realities, which are complex. I know it's lovely to make them sound simple and easy, and if only it were that way. I have kids who are in their late 20s and early 30s who are going through exactly the sorts of challenges that have been described. On this side we absolutely understand it. Within our families, we're living it. Our constituents are certainly experiencing the challenges. As someone who has sat in this chamber for about six years now and seen inaction on that side, it's been frustrating to see where we have got to as a parliament and as a country with those on the other side in charge.

I understand the desire for it all to happen yesterday. We would love that too, but, sadly, we've been in government only since May, In that time, we have initiated extraordinary measures to turn around this giant ship that is our government. Some things are going to happen in the next couple of months which I know will make a really tangible difference, and that's what I want to take you through. As much as I admire the passion and the commitment for getting things done, I think it suggests that we don't have the same passion and commitment, and that's just wrong. On this side, we are totally driven to reduce inequality, to create opportunities for people and to give not just my kids but their kids and their kids' kids a better place to be. I have to say that I think there are probably some on the opposition side as well as on the crossbenches who think that. We just know they've got it wrong for the last decade, and our challenge, which we fully take responsibility for, is to get it right.

Think about the things that members in this chamber have witnessed just since May and even in the last couple of weeks—for a start, action to get wages up. There are people whose wages are rising when there was no prospect of it a year ago or even eight months ago. So let's remember what some of those measures are. A minimum wage increase in line with inflation for low-paid workers is dollars in people's pockets. It's dollars that they get to spend to eat better and to be able to pay their rent. It doesn't mean, of course, that suddenly things are perfect, but that's why one of the first actions we took was to support wage increases. That minimum pay rise of $40 a week for full-time workers benefits around 2.7 million workers.

Let's think about the support we gave for an increase in the salaries of aged-care workers. It's hasn't been done in this place in the last decade. None of the three previous governments had written anything to the Fair Work Commission to support pay increases. These are the things that make a difference and will continue to make a difference, as the Fair Work Commission works through that aged-care process. Let's think about the legislation that this chamber has been talking about today a lot of which, I have to say, is about women. It's about pay and inequality but it's also about gender and inequality. That legislation contains provisions that can bring about some of the most fundamental changes in making sure that the work of women is no longer undervalued. There are women and men who work in the caring professions, but those professions are largely feminised. These are the things that actually change the country, not just with a sugar hit and not just this instant but for the current generation and for future generations.

We need the support of the crossbenches to make these things happen. You and we can work collaboratively on this, and that will be the best way forward for this country—not to be constantly saying, 'It's all or nothing.' This is about collaboration. Collaborating across the board is how we're going to turn Australia around.

Dai Le (Fowler, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand here representing the people of Fowler where the average weekly wage is 20 per cent lower than the rest of Australia. We are a low socioeconomic community, but what does that really mean? It means that many people in my electorate of Fowler are on low incomes. They work in factories and run their small family businesses. Many of them have come to this country from migrant and refugee backgrounds, like mine, to create a better life for their families, with a dream of owning a home, sending their kids to a good school and work hard to provide for their future.

This government is making life more difficult by its refusal to extend the excise fuel duty to enable families in south-west Sydney to drive long distances to work or to take their kids to school or elderly parents to the doctor. Extending the fuel levy would not have added to inflation. Our families are now seeing a rise in petrol prices and will bear the brunt of this just before Christmas. The government is being stubborn in not splitting the fair work legislation amendment bill before us—for wage rises to take effect as soon as possible that would benefit low-wage workers, such as those in retail work, aged care, teaching and child care, and scrapping the low- and middle-income tax offset which would have benefited all Australians earning $120,000 or less.

The cost of living in my community of Fowler and in Australia overall has been front and centre for me since my election to this House. I am concerned for the health and wellbeing of the people who live in my area, who are trying to cope with so many increasing costs. They're paying more for fuel and interest rates are going up, as is their weekly grocery bill.

I'm worried about people like 71-year-old Katalin, from St Johns Park, who called my office this week. She told us how she can barely manage to keep herself going on the $926 a fortnight she earns as a pensioner, which has to stretch to pay for house insurance, rates, water, electricity, gas, green slip and telephone. It was heartbreaking to hear that she truly believes this government has mader life harder than it was when she raised two children as a single mother. It's not the first call we have had from a pensioner worried about how they will survive the coming months and the next year, with prices on the rise.

For us here in Australia and especially for the families in my electorate of Fowler, the cost-of-living crisis is hitting hard. Just this past week, the Treasury warned of a deterioration in the global outlook, and they said it is 'becoming probable that major developed economies will soon experience recessions'. According to NAB's consumer sentiment survey, consumers should expect to spend an extra $170 a week on essential costs, like groceries, fuel and bills, in the lead-up to Christmas.

I feel compelled to bring up the current state of the energy market. I'm worried about the mere thought of coping with a 20 to 50 per cent energy bill rise that will affect the mental health and stability of families who live in my electorate. We're stuck in a cycle that delivers excessively high profits for some companies at the expense of everyday working-class families, not to mention the impact of energy costs on some 18,000-plus small businesses in the area.

A rise in energy prices of 50 per cent could see many of our local small operators having to close their doors, because they simply will not be able to cope with another increase in operating expenses. These are the people I am here to represent, and our government must take responsibility and action when it comes to taking care of all Australians. We need immediate relief and a transition plan for renewable energy that will not hit our families in low-socioeconomic areas so hard.

Energy affordability affects us all, but for some people it means the difference between putting food on the table and shoes on their children' feet or spending a night at home in the dark. Ordinary working families, small business and the elderly should not be made to suffer while energy companies reap excessive profits. The government have a number of options in front of them right now. They could introduce a windfall profits tax on the energy companies or they could re-establish agreements that withhold local supplies of gas. The government needs to take care of this nation and provide affordability in cost of living now.

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

Can I start off by saying that everything we have done in this budget addresses cost-of-living pressures, and since coming to this office that's been the focus of this government. Even the choices that we're being criticised for by those on the other side have been put into place in an effort to take off pressures from the cost of living. One of our first acts as a government, in this place, was to put a submission to the Fair Work Commission that gave our lowest-paid Australians, the people that earn the least money of everyone, a $40 increase. That's putting money in their pockets.

We have come up with a raft of measures in this budget—for example, cheaper medicines, which save money for people who are on regular medication. As we heard earlier, we've reduced the co-payment to $30, taking up to $20, $30 and $40, in some cases, off medicines. Cheaper medicines mean that people have more money in their pockets and, at the same time, are not having to make the choice of whether to buy medicines or to pay for their food.

Cheaper child care is a big part of this budget in terms of tackling the cost of living. It enables people to go to work, especially in the feminised industries, by ensuring that they can have the correct child care that they require and are able to contribute to the economy, which puts more money in their pockets again. These are all measures that this government has taken to ensure that the cost-of-living pressures are lightened for families and people. Aged-care workers will get a 15 per cent pay increase. These are the people that look after our elderly loved ones. They get very, very low wages—as everyone knows in this place—yet do very important work. A 15 per cent increase in their pay is significant to assist with the cost of living.

Then we have the longer structural pieces in place in this budget—for example, building 30,000 affordable homes for people who can least afford to buy a home or to rent a home. Those 30,000 homes will mean an increase in building, construction jobs et cetera, which then helps the economy as well, and, of course, nearly a million homes in the near future will ease the housing pressures that we see in this country. Other long-term measures in this budget are 20,000 university places targeted at low socioeconomic status students and 100,000 fee-free TAFE places for people who couldn't afford to go to TAFE but need those skills to get a job or to get a better-paying job. These are important measures.

Nothing could be further from the truth than that this government's budget didn't address the cost of living; it has been at the forefront and the centre of this budget. I know many Australians are hurting. It's not to say that Australians aren't doing it tough; they are. We've seen the incompetency of the opposition when they were in government for nine years, not acting on the increase of wages to keep up with the cost of living, which is really the part that's hurting Australians. I know that this side of politics—this government—is doing everything it can to ensure that wages increase in line with the CPI to ensure that people have a decent wage to be able to pay their rent, to be able to buy their food and to be able to pay their school fees and all other costs that are required to run a household. That is important; it was at the centre of this budget. But in such times, when it is tough, with a war going on in the Ukraine and gas prices going through the roof, the worst thing we could do is make life harder for people. That's why the cost-of-living relief that we have provided in this budget takes this into account, and it is still substantial relief, in the order of about $7½ billion. It's timed and designed in such a way as to not add to the inflationary pressure that already exists in this country. That's really important—to do it in a methodical, measured way that doesn't put on added pressure into the future—to ensure that we can out of the current international situation that's taking place.

One of the fundamental policies of this budget was to increase wages, as I said, and job security. We wasted no time in arguing with the Fair Work Commission for an increase in pay for the minimum wage. This couldn't come at a more important time, and I'm proud to be part of this budget. (Time expired)

Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know a lot of everyday people really hate it when they hear politicians talk about the cost of living. There's so much empty rhetoric, so much pantomime politicking, so many crocodile tears, so many words, so little action, so many excuses and so little responsibility taken. People know the government could do something, and people know they won't. Meanwhile, the cost-of-living crisis goes from bad to worse.

Here are some facts. A recent ANU study found that one in four Australians are finding it hard or very hard to make ends meet at the moment. It's sobering. The number of people using buy-now pay-later schemes is now at 5.9 million. One in seven of these—over 840,000 people—are now using this on practically a fortnightly basis. That's 20 or more short-term loans a year. More and more people are getting trapped in a debt spiral.

A few weeks ago, NAB's consumer sentiment survey found that the average Australian expects to be paying an extra $2,000 before Christmas because of the rising cost of everything. That's fine if you're well-off, but what sacrifices will that mean if you're on a middle or low income? What presents can you now not buy for your kids? What holiday outing are you now going to have to cancel? And, at the lower end of income, what meals are you going to start skipping?

Inflation is starting to bite, but it's not inevitable that people have the suffer through this. The Labor government and the RBA are pursuing a strategy here with the intentional effect of making more people's lives harder. That's how they intend to solve inflation—hold back on social spending and push up interest rates. Everyday people will struggle to buy as much, leading to a drop-off in economic activity. Businesses will contract and lay off workers, who will then be forced to accept worse wages because there's a growing pool of unemployed to compete for their jobs. This is then supposed to lead to a drop in inflation. This punishes everyday people for the sin of living their lives and makes them bear the cost of fixing a problem they did not create. Labor say they want to get wages moving, but the broader policies being pursued by both the RBA and the Labor government in fact suggest they want to get them moving downward.

And yet, despite what some commentators say, inflation is in no way being caused by wages. Earlier this year, the Australia Institute found that a full 60 per cent of inflation was driven by corporate profits, which in a number of sectors are at record levels. UK economist James Meadway says the other real drivers are: the war in Ukraine, which driving up energy and other basic commodities prices; floods and other weather events ruining crops; and supply chain issues from ongoing COVID disruptions, particularly in China. So what is pushing up interest rates and holding back on government support supposed to do other than make people's lives harder?

Another great economist—in fact, a constituent of mine in Ryan—John Quiggin has pointed out that if Labor wants to use the excuse of inflation for not giving everyday people the relief they need then why does this not apply to the stage 3 tax cuts? Surely, $9,000 tax cuts for the rich is precisely the kind of cash splash that the Prime Minister has said he wants to avoid. I think there's a big double standard here. When it's money for the rich, or for fossil fuel corporations, there's plenty of money to be splashed. But when it comes to cost-of-living relief the government counts its pennies and blames inflation.

What's the alternative? The government could scrap the stage 3 tax cuts and put that one-quarter-of-a-trillion-dollar cash splash for the rich into things that will actually help people deal with the cost of living—like putting dental and mental health into Medicare, universal free child care, raising the pension, and income support. The RBA could freeze interest rates and the government could cap rents and build the public homes we actually need. Also, an urgent windfall tax on the giant gas corporations could be used to cap energy prices, which the Treasury yesterday agreed with.

Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Brisbane for bringing this motion today. I welcome the opportunity to talk about all the ways that this government is cleaning up the mess the former Liberal government made. It is perhaps also a good reminder, for the members of the Greens speaking today, of how we got here. The spiralling cost of living, the rising inequality, the state of our economy—they all lie squarely at the feet of the former Liberal-National government. If the Greens want to see what it really means to do nothing to address these issues, they need look no further than the nine years before the last election. In fact, the former government made this problem worse at every turn. If, instead, the Greens want to see what responsible government looks like, they should really pay attention to what has happened over the last five or six months. The Albanese government has hit the ground running. We have done everything possible to immediately address cost of living and rising inequality.

I'll happily provide a few examples of just how we are doing that. In December 2021 the former government cut the ability for local psychiatrists in my electorate of Gilmore on the New South Wales south coast to deliver bulk-billed video telehealth consultations, and it was not just in my electorate but across regional and rural Australia. This had huge ramifications for people in our community. We have had years of drought, bushfires, so many floods, and a global pandemic. But the former Morrison government decided it would be a good idea to make it more difficult for people living in regional Australia to access a psychiatrist. One local person who lives with bipolar told me how they could no longer afford access to prescriptions for their medication. It was simply awful. But we have gotten to work fixing this problem.

I was proud to announce with the Minister for Health and the Assistant Minister for Rural and Regional Health that from 1 November local people could once again access these bulk-billed video telehealth psychiatry consultations thanks to the Albanese Labor government. We restored the Liberals' cuts to this vital mental health support and made it affordable and accessible once more. Days after the announcement, Sharon wrote to me to say: 'Thank you, thank you, thank you for your work in helping to reinstate the mental health rebate for telehealth psychiatric sessions. I have been in a very dark place and this gives me hope.' That is the difference this government is making in local people's lives—helping those who need it most. That's what we're doing.

There are so many ways that the Albanese government is addressing cost of living and attempting to combat the inequality that the former government created. We're strengthening Medicare, establishing Medicare urgent care clinics across the country, including in Batemans Bay, to take pressure off our hospital system. In a community like ours on the south coast, health costs can quickly skyrocket. We've got an ageing population. We've got a health system struggling to cope after years of neglect. So we've made medicines 29 per cent cheaper, saving someone who is taking one medication a month as much $150 a year. We've also given 44,000 more older Australians access to the Commonwealth seniors health card, meaning that they will now pay no more than $4.70 a week for their medicines. This will make a real difference.

Another one of our top priorities is delivering the largest pay rise for pensioners in more than 12 years. Thanks to the Albanese government, the service pension, the age pension, the disability support pension and the carer payment have all risen by $38.90 a fortnight for singles and $58.80 a for couples. We've also increased the JobSeeker payment, the parenting payment, the war widow and widower pension—I could go on. We are helping the most vulnerable in our community with the cost of living, and it was a change we made in just a few months of government. When the Liberals spent almost a decade watching costs for pensioners go up and up, watching health costs go up, watching our aged-care system fall apart and watching it get harder to see a GP, harder to find a house you can afford and harder to get by, they kept wages deliberately low and they turned their back on regional communities like mine. This government is repairing that damage as quickly as we can. We take that responsibility seriously, and I will keep working every single day to make sure local people in my electorate get the support they need when they need it.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The cost of living is much more than a three-word slogan for many Tasmanians, because, on so many levels, Tasmanians are relatively disadvantaged compared with Australians from the mainland states. So any increase in cost of living has a disproportionate impact on people in my state. To illustrate the disadvantage, let's start with weekly earnings. In Tasmania average weekly earnings are approximately $1,000 a week, which is 17 per cent less than average weekly earnings on the mainland, where they're about $1,200. And housing: rents in Hobart are more than in Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne and Perth. And rents in greater Hobart are the country's least affordable for any metropolitan area, having risen by some 50 per cent since 2016. It's no better for those who seek to buy. In fact, over the last 20 years residential property in Tasmania has increased in value by 300 per cent, whereas on the mainland residential property over the last 20 years has increased by only 193 per cent on average. No wonder there are something like 4½ thousand Tasmanians on the public housing waiting list out of a population of only about half a million people, and the average waiting time for a priority applicant for public housing in Tasmania is now 72 weeks.

It's no better in the health space because Tasmanians—and this is well documented—are on average older and sicker than Australians on the mainland. We have one of the worst bulk-billing rates of any of the six states of the Commonwealth. Fuel prices are routinely much higher in Tasmania, and particularly in Hobart, when compared with other states and mainland capitals. We have a higher reliance on government pensions and payments—in fact, something like 30 per cent of Tasmanian households rely solely on government pensions and payments. I'm not just talking about JobSeeker and the rate of JobSeeker here. Put yourself in the shoes of someone on the age pension or the DSP having to pay $300 or $400 a week in rent. It's simply unachievable. And, of course, Tasmania is not immune from the national gas and electricity price rises.

This can be fixed. The government—the previous government, this government—has the tools at its disposal. For example, with housing, we really need to increase Commonwealth rent assistance. We really need investment housing tax reform. And, of course, we need much greater investment in social housing in Tasmania and across the Commonwealth. Yes, I applaud the federal government for promising to invest much more during this year and in the following years. But it's still only a fraction of what's required.

In health, we can lower the cost of living for many Australians by increasing access to bulk billing. But that will only occur if the Medicare rebate is significantly increased. Much talked about but never achieved is rolling dental care into Medicare. On fuel prices, let's give the ACCC the teeth to rein in the profiteers. When petrol in Hobart is 20c a litre more than the cost of petrol—or diesel, for that matter—in Melbourne or Sydney and the cost of moving that fuel to Tasmania might be 1c a litre then there's only one explanation, and that's profiteering. As far as energy prices more broadly go, the government needs to act and act urgently. As recently as this morning ministers were out talking about turning their mind to doing things, but let's do these things. Let's cap prices. Let's have a superprofits tax. Let's have a national gas reserve.

We can afford this. Ditch the stage 3 tax cuts, tax the wealthy companies and individuals, and let's reprioritise the federal budget. That's what I and many Australians will be looking to next May, when the first regular budget of this government is brought down. Will it reprioritise and will it do things to genuinely lower the cost of living for many Australians? The government and some speakers here today are making much of the budget two weeks ago. Yes, there were some very welcome measures to relieve the cost of living, but it's only a start. I am pleased that today the crossbench has offered the new government any number of suggestions that could be included in the May budget.

David Smith (Bean, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this matter of public importance, although I do find it ironic that this is an MPI that includes contributions from some that extraordinarily, if perhaps inadvertently, tried to block supply. That action, if it had been successful, would have been catastrophic for anyone with a real interest in addressing inequality. Every person on this side of the chamber understands the importance of addressing inequality. Dealing with inequality has been in Labor's DNA for more than 100 years. Every member of the government cares about workers and their plight as they try to balance the books at home. I wonder: have those having a go at the government today been watching the debate in this chamber today? We are literally moving a bill designed to deliver secure jobs and better pay, a bill that some in this chamber want to unconscionably delay, a bill that aims to provide more job security, help close the gender pay gap, modernise the workplace bargaining system and get wages moving.

These are all measures that address the cost of living and rising inequality.

Under the previous government, wages were deliberately kept low and insecure work was encouraged. Labor is taking the opposite approach, because we want to help workers get ahead. The Albanese Labor government wants a strong economy that delivers for all Australians. We want to see more workers in good jobs, jobs with security, fair pay and proper protections. We want workers to have a pathway to a better life and businesses to thrive. But, in terms of immediate action, you couldn't have been more immediate than the actions that we have taken to argue for a minimum wage increase in line with inflation. This comes after nine years of silence from those opposite during similar wage cases.

The minimum wage case is critically important, because, in particular, low paid-workers experience the worst impacts of inflation and have the least capacity to draw on savings. That's why it was one of our first acts to support wage increases for Australia's lowest paid workers, to ensure that their real wages do not go backwards. The Fair Work Commission delivered a minimum pay rise of $40 per week for full-time workers, benefiting around 2.7 million workers.

We're doing much, much more. We have introduced legislation that will drive investment in cleaner and cheaper energy, putting downward pressure on power prices. We are modernising the electricity grid to help put downward pressure on prices and support the transformation to a clean energy future. You can achieve more than one public good at the same time. Our allocation of $20 billion to the Rewiring the Nation fund will make much-needed upgrades to our outdated energy grid. New investment in renewables generation and shortage capacity will reduce Australia's exposure to international energy prices. We know what's happened over the course of this year. We'll create construction jobs in regional Australia and fast-track growth in sectors such as green hydrogen and battery production.

We are making early childhood education and care more affordable. This is the central part of our budget. We're investing $4.7 billion over four years to make early education more affordable for 96 per cent of families. This is an economic reform that will empower women with young children to work up to 1.4 million more hours per week in 2023-24.

Our budget cuts the costs of medicines. Starting next year, the maximum co-payment under the PBS will fall from $42.50 to $30 per script, a 29 per cent reduction. Each year, that will save 3.6 million Australians more than $190 million in out-of-pockets costs. So many pharmacists have told me what a difference they have seen in terms of their client base, knowing what medicines too many Australians have gone without because of the cost of those medicines. And, of course, from 2026 families will be able to access up to 26 weeks of paid parental leave—the biggest expansion of paid parental leave since—who?—Labor introduced it in 2011. We're fast-tracking fee-free TAFE places. There's so much more we're doing. We're improving pay equality for women. We've got a housing accord that will deliver a million affordable houses in next few years. I'm not sure how much else we can do.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to contribute to this debate. Australia's energy crisis is compounding the cost-of-living crisis in my electorate. Power costs make up a big chunk of household budgets, and, by and large, my constituents are not wealthy. Our weekly median income is just $736, almost $70 less than the Australian average. On top of mortgage repayments, rising rents and more expensive groceries, the forecasted 56 per cent increase in energy prices have left people wondering how on earth they'll keep the lights on when the cost of everything is going up.

The electorate of Indi is the highest ranked regional electorate facing mortgage stress, according to a recent report from UNSW. Wodonga, the largest town in my electorate, is in the top 30 postcodes in the state for forced electricity disconnections. In fact, regional areas make up 40 per cent disconnections in Victoria, even though we only make up 25 per cent of the population. And these statistics come from a time before the energy crisis began. I am very worried about what the new year will bring.

Australians need from this government a clear read about how it will rein in energy prices. First, we need a solution for the hip-pocket pain that's coming our way next year. More importantly, we need reforms that will safeguard household energy security and put families and communities at the centre. The scale of the national energy transition is daunting, but there are domestic remedies that this government could get on board with right now. I agree with the member for Macquarie; I really want to collaborate with government on this. I believe that household-level support for low-income and everyday Australians to secure cheap and reliable energy will have a game-changing impact on the cost of living.

Many people feel this problem is too big, but we need to bring it down to the local level. We should be exploring policy interventions that reduce barriers for families and households to tap into the cheapest source of power: the stuff that comes off our roofs and which we can store on our walls.

There are two policies which I took to the last election and which this government should and could adopt in its next budget. I've taken them to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy and put them to him. They're not cash handouts that would drive up inflation. They would help households right now. In the spirit of collaboration, he could get on board with this.

First, there should be no-interest loans for households to electrify their homes. Australians know that solar and batteries are cheaper over the long run but more expensive to buy upfront. Most people don't have the cash in hand to start. As it stands, poorer Australians are stuck paying higher power bills because they're locked out of renewables for their home. This is where government can step in. A $10,000 loan for households to install solar, batteries and low-energy-usage appliances would unlock immediate savings for millions of households. It would help low-income households afford the upfront cost. This would address inequality, drive down power bills and tackle energy policy.

Second, this government should be making it cheaper and easier for everyday Australians to by a home battery. This would help them lower their power bills and take control of their energy usage. In the last parliament, I introduced the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment (Cheaper Home Batteries) Bill 2022, which would expand the Howard government's Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme for household solar. Independent modelling showed it could lower the cost of household batteries by up to $3,000 and it could triple the number of batteries in Australian households within three years.

Now, I designed this policy under a former coalition government policy—a Howard policy, actually—and maybe that's not palatable to this government, but I say: forget that; get on board anyway. It's indisputable that this is a problem that needs to be tackled if this government is serious about energy equity.

Over one-third of Australians have installed rooftop solar on their home, but just one per cent have a home battery, and that's because the batteries are too expensive. In the last 10 years, the cost of solar has come down 80 per cent. We need to do the same for batteries. We need to put them within the reach of all Australians.

The cost-of-living crisis is hitting us now, and a fair chunk of it is due to power prices. The government has the platform to act, and it should. I thank the member for Fenner, a Canberra local, for pointing us towards the Wharf Revue. I notice that it is called Looking for Albanese. I'm looking for Albanese on this one. Get on board and collaborate. This is a great solution, and we should be doing it.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The discussion has now concluded.