Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also wish to take note of the answers made by Minister Scullion during question time. The Liberal Party are obviously running very scared at the moment. Senator Barnett refers to the GST and raises the scare tactic, which he assures us he will repeat, about Labor state and federal governments raising the GST. I really do not think that the Liberal Party should talk too much about the GST, because it might remind people that, on top of the cost-of-living pressures that they have, 10 per cent of every bill that they pay goes to GST. Ten per cent of every item, apart from fresh food, that they pay for goes to GST.

The Labor Party has no intention of increasing the GST because we understand the kinds of cost pressures that households are facing with the high prices and the increase in prices today. The Labor Party, understanding that, has no intention of adding to those cost-of-living pressures, the pressures that in the past year alone have seen a rise in rents by 5.2 per cent, education costs by 4.3 per cent, health costs by 4.1 per cent and housing costs by 3.6 per cent. We know that they are the kinds of pressures faced by working families today.

This Liberal government are so out of touch with that reality that they go off into flights of fancy about how families have never been better off than they are under this government. We know that that is absolute nonsense and that families are really suffering from cost-of-living and housing pressures and are struggling to make ends meet. The minister responds with talk about reduced unemployment levels under this government. It is true that unemployment levels have been reduced. What is also true is that, during this current term of government, the government introduced Work Choices, which makes those jobs far more precarious than they have ever been. Work Choices has made overtime rates a much more precarious proposition, has made casual work much more common and has the prospect of forcing wages down for those workers so that they cannot afford to meet the increases in costs that we were talking about. Far from a job allowing people these days to buy houses, it means that they are unable to be certain that their wage will meet those increased mortgage payments.

The government challenges us to produce policies in response to that. Mr Kevin Rudd, the leader of the Labor Party, has produced policies in response to that. He has said that he would appoint a petrol commissioner to monitor and investigate petrol price gauging and collusion. He has said he would direct the ACCC to monitor grocery prices and to publish a periodic survey of price movements. He has said he would instigate a public inquiry into grocery prices to get a better understanding of what is driving up prices and expand Labor’s price watch to survey supermarket prices and publish them on a website. This is the Labor Party saying that they understand the pressures that families are facing.

The Labor Party also understand housing pressures and, rather than whingeing about the states not responding, they have done something about them. At a housing forum, and later in Adelaide at the Press Club lunch that I attended, Mr Rudd produced policies in response to that. He has talked about having a national affordability housing agreement in conjunction with the state governments. He has talked about Labor’s affordability fund for housing, which would look at infrastructure and reduce the amount that it costs to buy land and to produce housing around Australia. This is a fund that would help up to 50,000 families buying their first home. The Labor Party is looking at practical measures to help families. This government is so out of touch that it has lost any contact with the kind of reality that members of the Labor Party understand very well. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.