Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Hansard source

My remarks are going to be somewhat less climactic! I rise this afternoon to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (2022 Measures No. 5) Bill 2022. Of course, the opposition will be supporting this bill. It is largely procedural in nature and it's the well-established custom and tradition of this parliament that applications for deductible gift recipient status that are agreed by the House are also agreed by the Senate.

This bill implements decisions taken by the previous coalition government to grant or extend deductible gift recipient status to a number of organisations, including the Melbourne Business School, the Leaders Institute of South Australia, St Patrick's Cathedral Melbourne Restoration Fund, the Jewish Education Foundation, the Australian Education Research Organisation, Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition and the Sydney Chevra Kadisha. The bill also grants the status to Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition, limited, as I previously noted, as set out in the government's 2022-23 October budget. I also note that the Mt Eliza Graduate School of Business and Government has ceased its operations and activities, therefore its DGR status has been removed in this bill.

The opposition's support for the provisions in this bill should not be confused with support for the way this bill has been progressed. Indeed, the existence of this bill stands as a monument to the new Labor government's inability to manage its legislative agenda so early in its term and despite having, or perhaps never having, a particularly wide or deep or ambitious agenda to drive down cost-of-living pressures or improve productivity across the economy. Put simply, this bill should actually not have existed.

Those who have watched the passage of this bill closely will note that the inclusion of just a single schedule in this bill looks exactly the same as the schedule included in the Treasury Laws Amendment (2022 Measures No. 4) Bill 2022. The Treasury laws No. 4 bill is currently before a Senate economic legislation committee. The bill before the Senate today amplifies a significant legislative failure by the government. This particular schedule had originally been incorporated into the government's Treasury laws bill No. 4, which meant the progress of these DGR matters would have been delayed as a result of the parliament's consideration through the Senate economics committee legislation of the Treasury laws amendment bill No. 4, which are due to report on 3 March. So, instead, in order to progress the DGR status for these worthy organisations, the government was forced to create a new Treasury bill. The new government's new economics team is clearly operating on training wheels. In the last parliamentary sitting week of last year, we got a valuable insight into how the new government seeks to treat the crossbench in the form of Senator McKim's interactions with the Minister for Financial Services, the Hon. Stephen Jones. But I'm sure my colleagues on this side can further illuminate on that experience and those observations.

The most important matter in the first few moments of the new parliament, the first sitting day of this new parliament, is that we are going from concern to crisis in the Australian economy. Just last week we heard that the Reserve Bank of Australia, the independent bank, in response to a question from a senator, said that 800,000 loans would shift from fixed rates to variable rates in this calendar year of 2023. Just think about that. In addition to that, the Parliamentary Library has suggested that in some months of this year the number of fixed loan rates shifting to variable rates could be as large as 55,000.

We heard last week that the Australian Energy Regulator predicts—expects—there to be 75,000 households currently on energy hardship programs. The Australian Energy Council said it expected there to be an extra 10,000 households on energy hardship programs. But, more than that, the inflationary pressure, the cost-of-living pressure, being felt across the Australian economy and being felt across Australian households is also starting to impact the charity and not-for-profit sector. Late in December last year, just before Christmas, the Australian Council of Social Services was forced to release a report which talked about growing pressures on Australian charities as a result of inflationary pressures in the economy and because of the surge in demand that the charity and not-for-profit sector is now starting to experience as people try, and unfortunately fail, to meet those cost-of-living pressures. The Australian Council of Social Services says that there is a surge in demand for services, that wait lists are now getting larger and, in fact, some people in need are not being able to be serviced by community sector providers at all.

If that weren't bad enough, last week at the cost-of-living Senate inquiry we heard from the charities and not-for-profit sector themselves about how their sector is suffering from fatigue and exhaustion. That's a very fair comment, when you think about the fact that the Australian charities and not-for-profit sector has been at the forefront of dealing with natural disasters in our country—not one, but many—and stepped up and supported Australian households and local communities during the pandemic. Without any reprieve they're now being forced to respond, as they always do, to the cost-of-living challenges being experienced by Australian households—from concern to crisis.

At 2.30 pm today the RBA will make its latest rate decision. I hope that that rate decision is going to be no change. Of course, I'm not and no-one in the Senate chamber is privy to what that rate change will be, and we'll have to wait until 2.30 to find out. I'm not a betting person, but those of you who are betting people would probably want to bet on the fact that there will be a rate rise and it will either be 25 basis points or 50 basis points, the ninth consecutive interest rate rise. Let's think about that: it's the ninth consecutive interest rate rise, and that is going to hurt Australian households who are already struggling with inflationary pressures and who are already struggling with energy cost increases.

What is the government's plan? Day 1, a new parliamentary year, what is the government's plan to provide energy relief, to provide relief to Australian households and to put downward pressure on those inflation rates and on interest-rate rises? What is the plan? Silence. Again, what is the plan? Again, silence. This new Labor government is imperilling the prosperity, the hard work, the effort of Australian households, and Australians will start to ask themselves: 'Why does this new Labor government make my family poorer? Why is Anthony Albanese making my family poorer? Why is the Treasurer, Mr Jim Chalmers, making my family poorer? Why is the new Labor government making it harder for the charities and not-for-profit sector in our country to meet this surge in demand for services? Why? Where is the plan?'

The government will say it's got a plan, but you have to wait until May. I can't tell you how many further interest rate increases there will be from today until May. I can't tell you how many of those 800,000 fixed-rate loans transferring to variable-rate loans in 2023 will be transferring in February, in March, in April and in May. That change in mortgage repayments represents real hurt and a real crisis for Australian households, no matter where they live across this country—crickets from the government. Some in the government might say, 'The Treasurer has written a 6,000-word essay.' I don't know whether Senator Pratt has had the time to read it and I don't know whether Senator McAllister has had the time to read it. I don't know what their view is. None of us in this place would argue against the importance of ideas, but we all know how time-poor we are and how important it is to keep ourselves focused on the real challenges of doing our job in the here and now. I suspect that many Australians, when they hear that there is no plan from Mr Chalmers for cost-of-living relief, when there is no plan from the Labor government on how to better to support charities and not-for-profits, I think the conclusion that they might come to is that 6,000-word essay was a luxury, was largesse, was indulgent.

The economy has gone from concern to crisis. Australian households will be starting this year with trepidation, taking their kids to school with trepidation. I'll be very interested to see what happens in May, where the government chooses to put that much-needed relief. I'm someone who says, 'I would like to see that plan sooner rather than later.'