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

I too rise to speak on this matter of public importance from Senator Dean Smith on the cost-of-living crisis facing so many Australians. This is a government that doesn't have a plan, and that's very clear. In fact, we saw it revealed here in question time today, and I'll go back to that later. We've seen a government with no plan. Incoming, this government knew that gas prices were on the rise. We had seen that long before the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. We had seen rising gas prices and we knew that in the end they would have a flow-on impact on businesses and households. What's this government's immediate response to that crisis in gas prices? I will just point out that it is an eastern states gas crisis, as the Western Australian situation is very different. What's the government's response? What does it put on the table as policy responses to the rising cost of gas impacting on the rising cost of living? There are price controls—a policy that has failed every time it has been tried for over 2,000 years. There's increased regulation—a policy that, again, has a very dubious chance of actually succeeding in pushing downward prices on gas. What's the other one they floated? A taxation increase—is that really going to help cost-of-living pressures on Australian families and Australian businesses? It almost beggars belief.

This is a government that came into office without a plan, and we've seen that today. In answering a question on inflation and wages today, the finance minister said: 'No-one is pretending that wages should be growing at the pace of inflation.' Think about that for a second. 'No-one is pretending that wages should be growing at the pace of inflation'—she said that just today. Yet what did the Prime Minister say just a few short months ago about wages and inflation? He said: 'It's not bad luck; it's bad policy that wages aren't keeping up with inflation.' Don't you see the quite contrary positions in those two statements? The Prime Minister said, 'It's not bad luck; it's bad policy that wages aren't keeping up with inflation.' The finance minister said, 'No-one is pretending that wages should be growing at the pace of inflation.'

This is a government that has no clue about how to handle the pressures of a modern economy. This is a government that has no clue how to satisfy the demands of the union movement on the one hand and still maintain downward pressure on prices and maintain the strong and growing economy that they inherited from the Liberal government. It is a government that promises much. They promised a $275 decrease in power prices to every Australian family. In their first budget, they delivered an increased outlook for energy prices going into the foreseeable future. We have seen massive rises in the cost of fuel, which impact on every Australian household. We've seen massive rises in the cost of rental accommodation. We've seen huge flow-on impacts to things like grocery prices. Every family knows that the headline rate of inflation is not reflective of the real cost-of-living pressures that are facing every Australian family. Part of the reason why these cost-of-living pressures will keep going is that this is a government that is contradictory internally. It doesn't know how to handle this situation and it doesn't even understand how wages and inflation work.