Wendy Askew (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise today to speak on the matter of public importance regarding the failure of the Albanese government to have a plan to address the rising cost of living facing Australians today despite the government's repeated claims during the election campaign that they had a plan. How appropriate it is that we're discussing this today, the day the Reserve Bank increased the interest rates by a further 0.5 per cent, taking the cash rate to 2.35 per cent, the highest level since December 2014. This rise is the fourth 0.5 per cent rise in each of the four successive months since the election and it will send even more Australians into mortgage stress. In Tasmania, where the average mortgage is around $450,000, payments could be increased by an extra $130 per month. That's $130 less money for those families every month.

This interest rate rise comes on top of an inflation rate of 6.1 per cent as at June this year, which is the highest rate of inflation in almost 32 years. Coincidently, this peak in inflation in the December 1990 quarter came at the time of 'the recession we had to have', according to Labor back then. Then there's the rising costs of groceries and the rising cost of electricity. Tasmania's power bills increased by 12 per cent in July, which is an extra $200 a year. The cost of living is higher now than ever, but we're still waiting to hear of the Albanese government's plan on how they will deal with this crisis.

However, the Parliamentary Budget Office has some insight for us on Labor's policies. The PBO has confirmed that the government's policies will result in higher debt and deficits than the plans the coalition put forward ahead of the election. So not only are we in a worse position since Labor took government but we will be worse off in the future too due to the cost of their policies.

The Assistant Treasurer is predicting hyperinflation and more industrial action. We don't need predictions about doom and gloom; we need action from a government that actually has a plan to get the cost of living down for Australians. During the coalition's term, more than $1.9 million jobs were created, with over 1.1 million of those filled by women. Female workforce participation grew to 62.24 per cent under our watch compared to 51. 7 per cent when we took over government, and the gender pay gap reduced too. The unemployment rate dropped to 3.9 per cent, the lowest in decades, and the number of trade apprentices in training hit 220,000, which is the highest level since records began in 1963.

Besides creating jobs so that more people could earn their money, the coalition cut taxes. Low- and medium-income earners became eligible for a tax offset in July, something many people have already realised benefits from after submitting their tax returns in recent months. And we legislated the personal income tax cuts to ensure that around 95 per cent of taxpayers will not pay a marginal tax rate of more than 30 cents in the dollar in 2024-25. We also reduced the company tax rate for small businesses to 25 per cent—and remember, small businesses are what drives Australia's economy, and the people running these important operations were being taxed at 30 per cent under Labor. The coalition introduced the unincorporated small business tax discount and lifted this rate from five per cent in 2015-16 to 16 per cent from 2021-22. Combined, these change will deliver more than $21 billion in tax cuts to small business from 2015-16 to 2024-25, with around $2.6 billion estimated to flow through in 2022-23. Not only did the coalition expand access to small business tax concessions but we also provided tax relief and reduced red tape.

Then there's the coalition's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the course of the pandemic the coalition provided $314 billion in economic support to help Australians get to the other side of this huge economic shock. This support included JobKeeper, the program that saved 700,000 jobs and stopped the unemployment rate reaching 15 per cent. It was the biggest economic support program in Australia's history.

So where is the Albanese government's plan to address the cost-of-living rises that are impacting us all? There is no plan. The Prime Minister has already broken his election promise to reduce power prices for families and businesses by $275, but we all know that our energy bills are rising and look set to keep going up. Before the election, Mr Albanese said Australians would be better off under a Labor government. I don't think the people who are facing a 0.5 per cent interest rate rise on their mortgage today feel they are better off.