Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I, too, rise to speak on this matter of public importance. Through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, to the mover of this MPI, Senator Pocock: I will start by noting the change of tone from those opposite on this topic since we were in government. When they were sitting on this side, it was all very easy—to throw around promises, to make claims and to push barrows, none of which could ever be fulfilled if they'd had to take a responsible economic approach to the budget. The sad reality of what we've seen over the last 24 hours in terms of cost-of-living pressures impacting all Australians, including those on social welfare, is that there's very little in this budget for them.

In fact, we've seen an abject failure on one of the key promises—on energy costs. And we've seen an abject failure by the Treasurer, just today, to explain the promise to deliver a $275 reduction in electricity costs, which would make a real difference, particularly to low-income Australians. But the Treasurer today, in his mishearing of a question in the Press Club, and in his subsequent response in question time in the House, has shown that he's not even sure if the $275 was in the budget or wasn't in the budget. If it was in the budget, then it is clearly a broken promise, because the budget shows that electricity prices are going to rise—and not just by a small amount, but by something like 50 per cent.

In a situation where Australians, particularly low-income Australians, rely on a budget taking these kinds of issues seriously, this government has failed the first test. It has failed the first test—of achieving what it said it was going to achieve—and it has failed the test of competence—of answering questions on what are very straightforward issues. Are they going to deliver on the $275? Is it in the budget or not? These aren't complex questions, these are easy questions. A lot of Australians, including Australians on income support, would like the answer to them and, unfortunately, we just get confusion from the Treasurer.

In the few minutes remaining to me, I want to set the record straight on the issue, because sometimes there's a lot of misinformation distributed about the coalition government's record in this area. In particular, in the last couple of years of the coalition government, it provided unprecedented payments right across the economy to assist those on low incomes and to assist those on welfare—to assist those who were doing it very, very tough in an unprecedented time—in fact, $32 billion in emergency support payments, which the current government now often labels as wasted spending or, somehow, a poor expenditure of money. At the time, of course, they supported it, and it kept the economy strong. In fact, we delivered an economy that was in very good shape, that was growing and had delivered record low unemployment, with a growing number of people in jobs and extraordinary opportunities in the economy for people who were looking for a job. The coalition government also delivered the first increase in support payments—don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure I'm right—since 1986. So the coalition government actually had a very proud record in this area.

We also made it clear to the Australian people that there were economic headwinds including inflation and that a sensible response by the Commonwealth government was required as we shepherded the economy forward. That is the challenge for the Labor government, and they failed the first test.