Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to make a contribution to this MPI on cost-of-living pressures. In my home state of Western Australia the rising cost of living is a huge issue. People are struggling every day with the costs of groceries, fuel, bills, rent and housing. Inflation in WA is the highest in the country— regardless of the $5 billion surplus that we got in our last budget—with Perth topping the capital cities at 7.4 per cent. Fresh, healthy food is more expensive than ever. The latest ABS living-cost indexes show that the cost of fruit and vegetables is increasing the most, and we all know the story about the lettuce.

It's clear that we are facing cost-of-living and wages crises, and WA families have never done it so tough. We know that rising rents and house stress are pushing households to the brink. Rents have increased by 9.1 per cent in WA in just the last 12 months—9.1 per cent, in a 12-month period. So if you are on income support, like JobSeeker or DSP, the disability support pension, the rent is completely unaffordable. Anglicare's Rental Affordability Snapshot for 2022 found that less than one per cent of available properties are affordable for people on income support payments. These rents continue to skyrocket alongside interest rates, which are squeezing people into housing insecurity and homelessness while we're putting homeownership continually out of reach of young people.

We need real solutions and we need them now. If the government want to address the cost-of-living pressures, there are two things that they can do in the October budget, because we, on this side of the chamber, here in the Greens, are solution focused. Firstly the government could make child care free. The government's promise to reduce childcare costs in July next year is simply too far away. Families need cost-of-living relief today, not in 2023. Secondly, the government could put dental into Medicare, and that would deliver real cost-of-living relief to everybody. Getting dental into Medicare and making child care free could save a family of four up to $7,000 per year. This would deliver real and immediate cost-of-living relief. These would be long-lasting changes that would absolutely deliver real relief to everyday people who are battling with high inflation and lower wages and incomes—better than the short-lived fuel excise cut, from the now opposition, that could be wiped out by the profiteering petrol corporations. These measures would mean that people are better off not just right now, not just next month but next year and the year after that.

It's time for us to look for bold solutions to these cost-of-living crises. When I was re-elected to this chamber, I assured the people of Western Australia that I would stand up for them here in Canberra. Why can't we axe the stage 3 tax cuts, which will deliver nothing for working families and those on minimum wages, who are absolutely struggling to make ends meet? Why can't we introduce a superprofits tax that will tackle inflation and cost-of-living pressures? The oil and gas companies of this place are making record profits; 96 per cent of the gas industry is foreign owned. These corporations don't even pay royalties for the gas that they produce and export, so they're getting their produce for free. I don't know any business in this country that gets their produce for free and sells it on and makes a profit from it. But these gas companies do, all the while wrecking the planet.

These are the solutions that are going to relieve the cost-of-living crisis, and we need a government that are going to be bold enough to put this vision into practice.