Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today.

Six months into the term of this new government, the Australian people are seeing that what was said before the election doesn't necessarily apply after the election and also that the Labor Party continue to cynically and politically use their governance in their relationships with the states. We've heard about the ring road and suburban rail project in Victoria and the allocation of $2.2 billion to that project. The Victorian Auditor-General questioned its viability, but it continues to be there. It's quite extraordinary that the current Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Catherine King, said that, if it doesn't stack up through the Infrastructure Australia process, they'll just send it back until it does stack up. How is that good process? When Tasmania asked for some support for a stadium to support the AFL licence that's coming our way, which is great news, the Prime Minister said that he wanted to see a business plan. When New South Wales was looking for support for infrastructure projects, there were significant cuts to infrastructure projects in New South Wales or they were phased out beyond the budget estimates.

But when Victoria wants a project to suit its election time line, even though the project has questionable economics, $2.2 billion of Australian taxpayers' money is funnelled into that in support of it. There's money funnelled into that. When Tasmania wants to see a stadium built to support an AFL side, that's too bad. But $2.2 billion can be found to suit the political purposes of the Victorian Labor Party for their election campaign.

We're seeing that in relation to the cost of living. Before the election, no end of now government ministers—then opposition ministers—were out there in the public arena talking about how they would be working to support Australians with the cost of living. In fact, the now Treasurer said on Sky Agenda on 1 May, 'That means under Labor you'll have a government which cares about cost of living and has plans to deal with it.' What we're actually seeing is that there was no plan, and there is no plan. That's been demonstrated by the cost-of-living pressures that we're seeing now. The budget admits that electricity prices will go up by in excess of 50 per cent and that gas prices will go up by in excess of 35 per cent.

Australians are coming to realise that they were sold a pup before the election with all the commitments that were made around the cost of living. In fact, as the opposition leader said in his address in reply to the budget, 'Everything is going up except your wages.' The government are now admitting that—they're crab walking away from all of their promises. They're seeking to redefine their promises, or they're doing what they've done all along, which is blame somebody else: 'It's somebody else's fault; it's somebody else's problem.' What's very, very clear is that Labor don't have a plan. They never had a plan, despite saying dozens and dozens of times in the lead up to the election that they did. Australians are realising now that just because Labor said it doesn't mean it was so.

So the cost of living continues to go up, the cost of your gas and electricity bills are continuing to go up, your tax payments are going up, government spending is going up and real wages are forecast to go down. This government made commitment after commitment to support Australians. They said that they would be with them all the way, that they would be beside Australians in dealing with the challenges of the cost of living and that they would support Australians to do that. What has become very apparent is that Australians are now on their own. Labor has no answers—it's crab walking away from its commitments—and Australians are going to have to deal with these problems on their own.