James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

The matter of public importance that we are debating today is one that's in my name, and I think it's important to make sure that those listening at home because there's nothing else on the wireless are fully aware of the words of it. It is:

The failure of the Albanese Government to have a plan that addresses the rising cost of living facing all Australians.

The most important part of that is 'a plan', because it is pretty clear that this Labor government doesn't have a plan.

It's abundantly clear that the Labor government won the election in May of this year and my mob lost. Obviously, I'm workshopping my pain about that still, but that side are in power. What is interesting is how the new government—who have been in since May, so it's almost six months of being in power—are failing to understand that they're the government, that they have a responsibility to look after Australians and that they can't keep acting like a bunch of wannabe student politicians. They go around continuing to blame the previous government for everything from their bad haircuts to lost socks in the washing machine, but, in fact, they're the government and they're the decision-makers.

What is abundantly clear is that there is no plan. It reminds me a bit of that Monty Python skit about the dead parrot, in that there is no plan. It's a dead plan; it was dead on arrival. And we've got a government that goes around doing a lot of talking. They get a gold medal for talking. We witnessed that in question time today, where both Senator Wong and Senator Watt showed their hubris, their arrogance, their ego, their self-confidence and the self-congratulation party—I won't say orgy—that they are having in terms of how brilliant they are. But they're not delivering. They also regard a series of press conferences as a strategy or a plan. They regard sending some tweets out as a plan.

The former British Prime Minister David Cameron once famously said that too many tweets make a—well, it's a word that members of the CFMMEU would use when they're abusing females on a worksite, so you can imagine what the word is. There's no plan. There are a lot of tweets, a lot of press conferences, a lot of media releases being issued.

Those Australian families who went off to work today will come home and they'll get the news—depending on what time they listen to it, whether the radio is on in the car or they watch the six o'clock news—that the interest rate on their mortgage has gone up another half a per cent. So, if you live in one of the big cities and you've got a mortgage of, let's say, around $700,000 or $750,000—which is a lot money, but it's not uncommon in the big cities of Australia to have a mortgage like that—since May this year, since the election of this Labor government, your monthly mortgage payments have gone up by $800 or $900.

That is scary. That is very scary for the working families of Australia who are dealing with a Labor government that doesn't have a plan but is far more interested in playing politics, far more interested in media stunts, far more interested in having summits where people get together. I think a quarter of the attendees at the Jobs and Skills Summit last week were union officials or connected to the Labor Party, so this giant talkfest last week was a very broad, representative summit.

But for those Australians whose mortgages have now gone up today by another half a per cent, what is the message from this Albanese Labor government? It's arrogance. It's hubris. It's the laughing that we saw from the Labor ministers during question time today. It's the belief that they are invincible. This was particularly personified by Senator Watt, who is the new agriculture minister. Senator Watt was taking credit, as the minister, for the output of Australia's farmers. And I stand in this place as someone whose parents were cane farmers, whose grandparents were cane farmers and whose great grandparents were cane farmers. If you look at my hands, they clearly are not the hands of a farmer, and I think to myself: no politician, especially no Labor minister, should ever take credit for the work of a farmer and their family, or the work of a small businessperson and their family, because the work and the output that comes from the farm and comes from that business isn't because of some Labor politician; it's because of that farmer and that small businessperson.

What fascinated me was how Senator Watt was taking credit for the increased output of Australia's farmers. He was taking credit essentially for the good weather that we've had recently. I was thinking, 'Mate, you've got no idea about Queensland, a state which you claim to be a senator for. It's a state where some parts are still in drought. It's a state where, over a 10-year period, you might have one or two good years of good production, then you will have one or two years of average production and then you will have five or six years of very bad production.

If Labor are prepared to claim all the credit for the work that the farmers and graziers in Queensland do, I look forward to them standing up here when the drought comes back, which it will, and taking the blame for the hardship that has been wrecked upon and wreaked upon the businesses and farmers of Queensland. We've got a Labor government who don't understand how you address the cost of living. To quote one of their former leaders, who's now with my colleague Senator Hanson's party, it's not a conga line of press conferences; it's sitting down and doing the real hard work of government. It's sitting down and making decisions that will benefit the Australian people. It is sitting down and making sure—and I say this as someone who believes strongly in the cutting of taxes—that you continue to cut taxes.

It is making sure, also, that you deliver on your promises. One of the most interesting promises that Labor made during the last campaign was that they would reduce the power bills for Australians by $275. That was a pretty—