Garth Hamilton (Groom, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With inflation at a 32-year high and interest rates hurting households across the country, we have the following contribution from the Treasurer in The Monthly:

By strengthening our institutions and our capacity, with a focus on the intersection of prosperity and wellbeing, on evidence, on place and community, on collaboration and cooperation. By reimagining and redesigning markets—seeking value and impact, strengthening safeguards and guardrails in areas of unchecked risk. And with coordination and co-investment—recognising that government, business, philanthropic and investor interests and objectives are increasingly aligned and intertwined.

I join with the average Australian in saying, 'What does this mean? What are you on about?' This is absolute undergraduate gibberish that has no place in sensible economic debate, and that is exactly what we need at this point in time. The challenges that Australians are facing to manage their household budgets and the challenges that Australian businesses are facing real, and the Treasurer's hubristic essay does absolutely nothing to address any of those challenges.

When a government intervenes this much in an economy, they own that economy, and we need to make that case very clearly to the Australian people. Be it the IR legislation or be it price caps that we've seen introduced that we never would have suspected from the language before the election, the government has intervened as much as it can in this economy. What that means for Australians who are hurting right now is that they need to understand that the interest rate rises that we've had, that are coming and that will be sustained are the result of this government refusing to work with the RBA to deal with inflationary pressures.