Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (Senator Conroy) to questions without notice asked by Senators Coonan, Fifield and Sterle today relating to inflation.

I wish to take note of the answers—or should I say ‘non-answers’—given by Senator Conroy today. I am very pleased to see that Senator Conroy has gone scuttling out of the chamber because today we have seen the most pitiful display by the senator purporting to represent the Treasurer. He was incapable of answering straightforward economic questions; namely, he could not explain how his government’s higher taxes will not put up prices. He totally avoided the question. Even though he represents the Treasurer in the Senate, he did not even know the projected surplus over the forward estimates. You can always tell a senator on the other side of the chamber is having trouble answering a question when the best they can do is resort to false and tired rhetoric about the coalition.

We are here looking at what the government is doing. The key test the government set itself in the budget was whether it would strengthen the economy and whether it would put maximum downward pressure on inflation and interest rates. Regrettably, it has failed miserably on both accounts. The Treasurer, Mr Swan, and Senator Conroy have comprehensively failed to explain how increasing taxes on alcopops, gas and cars will somehow reduce inflation. The Treasurer is directly increasing the taxes on cars, alcohol and gas, and by increasing taxes on those goods the prices will go up.

The budget papers also very clearly show that the government expects people to drop out of private health insurance, which will put upward pressure on premiums. Families want to know how increasing the price of these goods and services reduces inflation. Families must be scratching their heads at this. Labor have not lifted a single finger since they have come into government to help those battling with the rising costs of living—with petrol, with groceries, with private health insurance and with home interest rates. Instead, we have these nonsensical policies of watching things go up: watching petrol prices go up, watching grocery prices, watching people leave private health insurance and watching people battle with increased interest rates.

It is a matter of record and it is indisputable—no matter how much those on the other side would like to have it differently—that the former coalition government left the economy in the best shape it has ever been in with real wages increasing by more than 20 per cent, real GDP per capita growing by 32 per cent, unemployment halved, inflation kept at 2.5 per cent on average over the cycle and Labor’s infamous $96 billion debt eliminated so that there was no net debt. Since Labor came to office, increasingly and worryingly there have been signs that they have no plan to strengthen the economy and put downward pressure on inflation. This is affecting business confidence and consumer confidence, which are at the lowest levels we have seen in something like 30 years. Business confidence has plummeted because there is no certainty about Labor’s direction for this economy, apart from the fact that it is slowing. The economy is starting to flag under the Labor government and the signs are they simply have no idea how to handle it and what they are going to do. Labor are wedded to the old ways of managing the economy. We have seen writ large higher spending, higher taxes and higher unemployment, which will all contribute to lower economic growth.

The coalition believes there should be no increase in taxes in a flagging economy where there is a bulging surplus. Labor on the other hand are poor economic managers. It is Australian families who will be paying for Labor’s mismanagement. What hope is there for families struggling with higher prices when the government’s only strategy is to increase taxes? We will continue to hold Labor accountable. We will not be a party to the passage of tax increases that hurt Australian families, put up prices and increase inflation. During the election campaign Labor never mentioned that they would increase taxes. Labor never mentioned that they would raise taxes to build a large slush fund to be used by them before the next election. They offer us nothing but policies like Fuelwatch, a policy so bad their own departments condemned it. (Time expired)