Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that the cost of living keeps going up under the Prime Minister and Treasurer, and since this Government took office:

(a) food and grocery prices are up by 8.2 per cent;

(b) housing prices are up by 10.4 per cent;

(c) insurance is up by 17.3 per cent;

(d) electricity is up by 18.2 per cent;

(e) gas is up by 28 per cent; and

(f) interest rates have increased 12 times;

(2) recognises it has not been easy under the Government since their election in May 2022;

(3) acknowledges that the Government has no plan to address spiralling costs and bring down inflation; and

(4) calls on the Government to deliver real cost of living relief to the Australian people.

As we all know, there's an ever-increasing cost-of-living crisis under the watch of this Prime Minister, this Treasurer, and this Labor government, and this issue is showing no signs of easing. It is now 18 months since the Prime Minister and the Labor government were elected. When Labor came to government, they promised they had all the answers to the cost-of-living crisis. But, as I've said many times in this place, don't listen to what they say; look at what they actually do, because nine times out of 10 they are two completely and utterly different things.

What did those opposite promise? They promised to reduce your electricity bills by $275. Instead, electricity prices have gone up 18 per cent and gas has gone up by 28 per cent. Millions of Australians have just been hit by another interest rate rise, the 12th since this government was elected. Interest rates are now at their highest level since 2011, and rents are experiencing their highest increase since 2009. Australia's inflation is higher than that of almost every major advanced economy. Food and grocery prices are up by 8.2 per cent, housing prices are up by 10.4 per cent, and insurance is up by 17.3 per cent. Inflationary pressures have compounded these increases, with Australians finding that their pay cheques are not going as far as they did a year ago, exactly the opposite of what those opposite, the current Labor government, promised. In addition to that, we've seen productivity collapse, and we are now in a GDP per capita recession.

But do those opposite have a plan? I'd venture to suggest that, no, they don't. Labor's plan to deal with these issues is completely and utterly non-existent. In fact, they have left it up to the Reserve Bank to try and deal with it alone and bring down these inflationary pressures.

But the Reserve Bank has but one tool, and that is interest rates. It places increasing pressure on dealing with this inflationary problem fairly and squarely on the shoulders of mortgage holders and also, by extension, those who are renting because the landlords who have mortgages are putting up their rents in response to interest rate increases.

Local residents in my electorate of Forde consistently rank cost of living as their No. 1 issue, with just under 40 per cent of the residents in my electorate having a mortgage. If they have an average mortgage of some $500,000—or a bit more in many cases—they are now being forced to pay an additional $1,200 per month in interest repayments alone in a climate where real wages for working families have fallen by around five per cent over the last 12 months.

Increasing energy costs are inflating the price of goods and services across the country. That's something those opposites seem to forget—electricity is in everything that we buy right across our economy. So electricity prices going up by 18 per cent feeds directly into the inflationary problem. That is a direct result of deliberate government policy. So, unless those opposites are prepared to change those policies, that problem is not going to go away. It does not matter how much the Reserve Bank increases interest rates by, it's deliberate government policy that is directly impacting the rate of inflation. It is only those opposites that can change it.

Last week, we saw the Minister for Climate Change and Energy make matters worse through a decision to write a blank cheque on behalf of taxpayers to bring more renewables online. If renewables are truly the cheapest source of energy, surely it wouldn't require subsidies to achieve those outcomes? The costs won't be outlined, but you can be sure that it will mean an increased cost in your energy bill, with this cost feeding through to all sectors of the economy, exacerbating our inflationary pressures. This government has no plan to ease the cost-of-living pressure.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is there a seconder for the motion?

Jenny Ware (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

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

Right now there is probably no bigger issue for local people than the cost of living. Whether it is rent, mortgages, medicines, groceries or petrol, it does seem that everything is going up and up. But one of the challenges for government is finding ways to help people with these costs that don't in fact make the problem worse. If in response to rising inflation you pump too much money into the wrong places, what you end up with is more inflation. That's why the 10-point plan the Albanese government has developed on cost of living is targeted to the areas of highest need that will have the least impact on inflation.

We have targeted our support to low-income earners and those doing it the toughest because it doesn't encourage them to spend; it helps them keep their heads above water. In fact, the ABS September quarter data shows that the measures we have developed took half a percentage point off inflation. The policies we have put in place since coming to government are actually making a difference to people and the economy.

Health, always high on the agenda for people in my electorate of Gilmore on the New South Wales South Coast, has had a major boost. As of November, we have tripled the bulk-billing incentive to help children, pensioners and concession cardholders access a bulk-billing GP. Not only does this help them but it also helps GPs. I have heard that local doctors in my electorate have started bulk-billing again, and local GPs have told me what a difference this policy is making to them. Our indexation boost on Medicare payments is also ensuring local GPs are getting the biggest helping hand they have had in years. On top of this, we have freed up countless GP appointments and halved the cost of many common medicines with our cheaper medicines policy. Coming from an area with high rates of chronic disease and a GP crisis that has escalated for years, this is extremely welcome news.

Despite the scare campaign that was run and the cries that the sky would fall in, it didn't, and local people are feeling the benefit of that. People with a Medicare card buying just one of the medicines covered by this policy will save up to $180 per year. That is on top of our reduction to the general co-payment, which brought the cost of medicines down from $42.50 to $30 from January. No-one should be choosing between food and medicine, and if people are healthy they can also continue contributing more fully to our economy—so many benefits!

We know that electricity is one of the areas hurting the most, so we've given electricity bill rebates of up to $500 to around five million households to help families, working parents and children alike. We've made child care cheaper, helping families on incomes of $120,000 with one child in care to save around $1,700 a year. That's benefiting around 4,800 local families in my electorate. That makes a very big difference to the family budget. It's another one that also has dual benefit for our economy, because it's helping parents, particularly mothers, get back into the workforce. At the same time, we're expanding paid parental leave to 26 weeks by 2026. How great is that?

The No. 1 cost for so many these days is housing. We know house prices are rising, access to affordable housing is at all-time lows and rents are skyrocketing. Our Housing Australia Future Fund will invest $10 billion to build more social and affordable housing along with our $140 million Housing Accord, and we've increased Commonwealth rent assistance by 15 per cent, benefiting 1.1 million households.

As a former TAFE teacher, I could not be more proud that we've made TAFE fee free for tens of thousands of students, because TAFE changes lives, and it benefits our economy, giving us the skilled workers we need now and into the future.

As well as bringing costs down, we have also made a big difference to the money coming into households. We've boosted income support payments by $40 per fortnight, and we've gotten wages moving again. Since we came to government, wages have been growing at an average rate of 3.6 per cent, compared with 2.1 per cent under the previous government. We've increased the minimum wage and boosted award wage earnings for our lowest paid workers, and we've given aged-care workers a 15 per cent pay rise. We're working hard, and we will keep working hard every single day to support those who need it most while ensuring we are helping our economy, not making things worse.

Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the motion moved by the member for Forde. The cost of living is the government's primary responsibility to the people of Australia. If they don't deliver an economic strategy that enables everyday Australians, like those in my seat of Longman, to not suffer financially, they are not fulfilling their duty. Unfortunately, we are seeing the exact opposite right now. People are losing jobs as the unemployment rate slowly starts to rise. We see homelessness increase as mortgages and rents rise and become unaffordable, and we see more families fall apart as the financial burden becomes simply too great. This lack of economic management simply damages lives—in some cases, forever.

Let's forget the politics here and look simply at the results since this government took office. In just over a year, food and grocery prices are up by 8.2 per cent, insurance is up by 17.3 per cent, electricity is up by 18.2 per cent, petrol is up by 19 per cent, and interest rates have increased 12 times under this government. Have there been factors that have driven this? Of course, but there always are. Whether it be an overseas conflict like Operation Desert Storm, Afghanistan, the Ukraine invasion, the seemingly never-ending conflicts in the Middle East, the GFC or a global pandemic, there always have been and always will be factors that can impact our economy. But it is the job of the government of the day to implement policies that mitigate and minimise the impacts that these factors will have on the Australian people.

Take the recent COVID pandemic. The former coalition government implemented initiatives like JobKeeper, increased the instant asset write-off, gave a one-off tax relief for small business, halved the fuel excise and introduced the $1,500 tax relief incentive for hardworking Australians, to name just a few.

The result? Real outcomes—like the lowest unemployment rate in five decades, the lowest personal and credit card debt as a percentage in decades, low interest rates of around two per cent, the highest personal savings in years and an economy that was booming. Governments must be judged on results. They must be judged on what they actually deliver, not what they say they will deliver. If you do this, clearly these results and history show that Australians are simply better off under a coalition government.

The data is irrefutable. A family in my electorate of Longman with a mortgage of $500,000 is now paying an extra $16,000 per year in mortgage repayments, or just over an extra $300 per week. This is simply unsustainable for many of these hardworking Australians.

So why are we seeing this cost-of-living crisis? There are many factors. However, a large portion of it is to do with a government led by a prime minister who has his priorities all wrong. Their entire focus in their first 12 months of government was the divisive Voice referendum. Instead of focusing on the real issue of the cost of living, they devoted much of their time and effort to a referendum that they were told very early on was not going to get up. There was $450 million spent on this referendum that could have been spent on cost-of-living relief—measures like halving the fuel excise, just to name one.

The government are claiming a budget surplus that is a result of the previous coalition government's excellent economic management during the pandemic. They fail to mention that, if we'd adopted all their suggested measures during the pandemic, there would have been an extra $80 billion in spending, which would have resulted in there being no budget surplus, just another budget deficit. Worse still, Labor has added an extra $188 billion in spending since coming to office, and this, of course, only feeds inflation.

The Reserve Bank governor has clearly stated that Australia's world-leading inflation is being driven by domestic factors right here in Australia, not by overseas factors. This is in clear contrast with the Prime Minister's and Treasurer's statements. They are blaming the rest of the world for their failures on inflation, instead of doing what strong leaders do, which is—instead of complaining and passing the buck—to get on with the job of finding solutions to the issues they face.

Only a coalition government will get Australia back on track through supporting, not hindering, small business, and by delivering lower taxes and a simpler tax system, along with cutting expensive red tape that drives inflation. They will support more Australians into work, instead of encouraging people to remain on welfare, which destroys their self-worth and value. Australians feel conned by this government and the promises that it made at the last election, and rightly so.

Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Forde for bringing on this motion. It is indeed a very important issue, probably the most important issue the government are facing, and we've known that since before the election. The cost of living was absolutely at the top of our agenda even before the election. Why? Because the cost of living was getting out of control even under the Liberals, when they were in power, and certainly inflation and interest rates have gone up since. Those opposite might need to remember that interest rates are set by the Reserve Bank of Australia, not the government.

The previous speaker, the member for Longman, said the government needed to say what it was doing. I've made a few short notes here. We've backed in higher wages. For the first time in more than a decade, there's actually a government in control that backs higher wages for workers. I can't think of a single measure that is more important for family budgets than higher wages in the pay packet coming through the door.

We're backing in cheaper child care. That's making a material difference to people who require child care, and it allows parents, usually women, to go back to work for those extra few days because they can afford to do so now.

We've actually made medicines cheaper. PBS medicines have come down from a maximum of $42.60 to $30. It's a material difference in the cost of medicines.

There's fee-free TAFE—a raging success across the country. Those opposite, of course, derided it, dismissed it and opposed it. Fee-free TAFE is a raging success in my state of Tasmania, where, I note, there is a Liberal state government that is backing it 100 per cent. Fee-free TAFE is making a real difference to people, enabling them to get the qualifications they require to go out and get a job.

We've got the strongest jobs growth in Australian history of any new government: 330,000 new jobs in our first year. And, after a decade of inaction and policy failure, we've got energy policy certainty and investment flowing through again.

They are some of the things we are doing. But there's no hubris on this side of the chamber. We know that many families out there are hurting—really hurting—with these interest rate rises, these mortgage rates, and we are doing all we can to provide cost-of-living relief and to make sure we get inflation back into the target range. It is for that reason that our cost-of-living relief measures are being rolled out in such a way as to not add to the inflationary burden. We haven't taken the easy road like those opposite and just handed out thousands of dollars in handouts, which then adds to inflation. We have done targeted cost-of-living relief measures.

What have those opposite done over the past year and a half in terms of contributing to the government's agenda on cost-of-living relief? They've said no to everything. When we proposed energy bill relief, they said no. We managed to get that legislation through the parliament, and it has made a material difference to the upward trajectory of power bill prices. It has made a real difference, and that is reflected in all the stats. So, while we are making policy, creating legislation to tackle the cost of living, those opposite are just saying no.

A few weeks ago I received an email from Josh, who lives in Bridgewater in the south of my electorate. Josh is a young man, married, raising a young family with his partner. He and his wife both work full-time, and they've recently purchased a home with a mortgage that they are paying off. He contacted me to let me know that he is feeling the pressure from the increased cost of living. As a mortgagee and a father he's acutely aware of the pinch being felt across the country by many working families. But there's good news. He told me his family is benefiting from the government's cheaper child care. Because of our cheaper child care policy, Josh and his partner are both able to re-enter the workforce, meaning more income for their family and more productivity for the country. He asked me what else we are doing to bring down inflation and cost-of-living pressures, and I was happy to advise him of the measures I have annotated here today.

This government recognises the challenge of the cost of living on household budgets in this country. It is the No. 1 issue, certainly in my electorate. Tackling inflation is a national effort. Mortgagees are playing their part in bringing down the inflation burden. I'd like to see others in the community, particularly corporations, do a bit more to bring down price pressures, and I'll certainly have more to say on that in days to come.

Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to support this motion regarding the cost of living, because it is simply acknowledging reality. It is a truth that those opposite hate to admit and struggle to explain to their constituents that it has not been easy under Prime Minister Albanese. Since Labor was elected the cost of living has increased dramatically. In just 15 short months food and grocery prices are up by 8.2 per cent, housing prices have increased by 10.4 per cent, insurance is up by 17.3 per cent, electricity is up by 18.2 per cent and gas is up by a whopping 28 per cent. And we know that millions of Australians have been hit hard by the 12 interest rate rises that have occurred under this government. With interest rates rising to their highest level since 2011, families with a mortgage of $750,000 are now paying an extra $24,000 per year on repayments. The rising cost pressures are being felt right across the country and are often just too hard to juggle, particularly when we consider that real wages for a working family have fallen by five per cent in the last 12 months.

Incredibly, there are now more Australians relying on hardship programs than there were during the peak of the pandemic. We've had wonderful charities like Foodbank WA confirm that they are now assisting dual-income households, a demographic they could never have expected to be supporting. It's hard to believe that in the lucky country that we call Australia, that we call home, there are mums and dads who are both working, both earning an income, yet unable to put food on the table for their family. This is heartbreaking for proud Australian parents.

Despite the rising cost of living repeatedly being highlighted as the No. 1 concern amongst everyday Australians, the Prime Minister has not developed a serious plan to address the crisis that this government is largely responsible for. Last week we had the governor of the Reserve Bank confirm that Australia's world-leading inflation is being driven by domestic factors. This was no shock, considering that, since coming to government, Labor has added $188 billion in spending, only making inflation worse, and that's just one example.

The government has chosen to bring in a staggering record number of migrants, meaning Australia's population is growing at its highest rate in 70 years, with this government intending to bring in some 1.5 million people over the next five years. There's just one problem: where are they all going to live? This is such recklessness. Is it any wonder we are seeing record low rental vacancy rates? Renters are now experiencing the highest increases in rent since 2009, and the dream of home ownership is becoming increasingly difficult to imagine, with the CEO of ANZ recently warning that home loans are becoming only for the rich.

Then there is their reckless energy policy, which has set a target of 82 per cent renewables by 2030, rising rapidly from the current mark of 30 to 35 per cent. Of course, this transition is not free and is driving up the price of electricity, which is a key driver of inflation. This is just another broken promise. Before the election we were told time and time again that, under Labor, Australians would save $275 a year on electricity. Instead—well, we all know what's happening—they are now paying well above what they were paying before the last election.

But, instead of being focused on bringing down the cost of living, the Albanese government has spent all its time and energy elsewhere. At the same time they are trying to avert blame, saying that this has nothing to do with them and that it is all being driven by global factors. If that's the case, then why is our inflation higher than that of most developed countries?

Before the election, the Prime Minister promised to make tackling the cost of living a priority. Since then, he's not developed a plan to curb inflation and has been focusing on the wrong priorities. This is a real crisis, and we need our Prime Minister to focus on what's important for everyday Australians. So I call on the Prime Minister and the Treasurer to do their jobs and come up with a real plan to combat the cost of living, because every day they refuse to address this crisis Australians are hurting, and Australians deserve so much better.

Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the last decade, under the former Liberal-National government, Australia suffered. It was a government that simply did not take the action needed to deal with the cost of living. Even as they saw the issues year after year and budget after budget, they left Australian households to fend for their own against some enormous structural problems within our economy. Not once did they actually consider dealing with the long-term cost-of-living issues. It was always the quick fix for them—or even, sometimes, no fix.

Australians across the country and in my electorate of Bennelong have had to pay for the consequences of the coalition's inaction. People in Bennelong and across the country live in a truly cooked housing market, inspired by the coalition's lack of attention to supply. Their wages were stagnant because of the lack of action and the design of the former government's policy. Child care rose by almost 50 per cent under their watch, and their lack of clarity and vision on energy policy has left our national energy market a mess, one that, like all other areas, this government has spent the last 18 months trying to clean up.

These cost-of-living pressures are not one-offs. None of them were sudden. These were generational problems amplified by years of failure by those opposite. But what I find extraordinary is that, when government relief and solutions that have been factually proven to limit and sometimes reduce inflation are proposed, those opposite have the audacity to argue that there is no plan or that there has been no relief for Australians.

The absurdity of this motion and of this opposition is that they come here into this place and say that there is no plan, when they are actively opposing policy and legislation that proves that there is a plan.

They complain about energy prices when they voted down energy price relief. They say that healthcare costs are going up whilst they oppose elements of our cheaper medicines plan. And they blame migrants for our housing crisis when they did nothing for 10 years on housing supply and then they voted against policy which would increase housing supply.

This government understands that household budgets are tight and that the impacts of cost-of-living pressures and inflation are being felt around the country. That's why we just won't sit on our hands while Australians are struggling, and that's why we are out in our electorates and in this place every single day working to address inflation and cost-of-living challenges.

I, for one, know that there is more to do in this space. Our plan to date exists—it's real—and it involves energy bill relief, cheaper child care, increased Medicare bulk-billing rates, reduced medicine costs, boosted income support payments, enhanced rental assistance, fee-free TAFE and training, increased affordable housing, expanded paid parental leave and real efforts to stimulate wage growth. And we're doing this all at the same time as we have delivered the first budget surplus in 15 years, which is putting downward pressure on inflation.

We know that this plan is working because the facts show it is. ABS data indicates that without our cost-of-living policies CPI would have been approximately half a percentage point higher throughout this year. In this September quarter alone, we saw that electricity prices increased by 4.2 per cent. Without the government's intervention, they would have surged by 18.6 per cent. Childcare costs have decreased by 13.2 per cent as a result of our policy we took to the election. Without these adjustments costs would have increased by 6.7 per cent. Rents increased by 2.2 per cent, but because of our rental assistance—the highest increase in 30 years—this would have been 2.5 per cent.

I want to also acknowledge that sometimes these programs are hard to understand and are hard to apply for, particularly for culturally and linguistically diverse communities like mine. That's why I'm one of many MPs that's actually doing something about it. On 11 December I'll be hosting a cost-of-living help hub in Eastwood, where I'll be bringing together government and non-government services like Services Australia, Centrelink, Service NSW, CCA New South Wales and the Energy and Water Ombudsman so that people in Bennelong can talk to people and access the support that is available to them. I will also be providing services to translate into Mandarin, Cantonese and Korean for people who need it. Providing cost-of-living support isn't just about good policy—it's about making sure people get access to it, and that's what this government is doing.

Debate adjourned.