Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

HUGHES () (): It's all going well for everyone today. It's all running very, very smoothly. What's not going so smoothly, though, is the superannuation plans of so many Australians. It is just extraordinary. Day after day we see broken promise after broken promise, pants on fire, as those opposite once again deceive the Australian electorate about what they said they would do before the election compared with what they are doing now. This government seems to think that it can somehow just push through lovely sounding ideas with no substance and no detail about how much they will cost, how they will work and who they will impact and that everyday Australians are not going to notice. But the Australian people are smarter than that, and they see through this plan.

What we know about those opposite is that when they don't have a plan they can't stop spending, and when they run out of money they will come after yours. The Treasurer and the Prime Minister have been missing in action in addressing the cost-of-living that is impacting every single Australian, and every decision they do make just makes a bad situation worse. They do enjoy appearing in front of the cameras with a sombre look on their faces, as if to say they feel the pain of Australians who are doing it tough out there. But is there a solution? No, there's not. Let's just pray to God that the RBA governor's 10th consecutive rate increase does the trick. On a wing and a prayer, this Labor government is hopeful that the RBA will stop raising interest rates on its watch. Let's blame the war in Ukraine. Let's blame the previous government for what is occurring. There is no responsibility taken, no transparency and no maintenance of their promises.

As most Australians would know, those who have a typical mortgage of around $750,000 are now paying $1,700 more a month. That's an extra $20,000 per year. That is an awful lot of money for a lot of families who are now struggling to make ends meet. What we also know is that not only is this impact causing great financial stress, but people's stress levels also are increasing to such a level that the requirement for Lifeline's services has increased significantly. There is actually data from Suicide Prevention Australia that shows 46 per cent of Australians have reported feeling increased pressure as the cost of living continues to rise. This is up five per cent from last year. The decisions of this government have real impacts on real families and real people's lives.

They're not doing enough to make the Reserve Bank's job easier. They're doing nothing to look after inflation. And what we do know is that now, with increased taxes on truckies, they're going to put further pressure on inflation as the cost of absolutely everything in our country that's produced on a farm, everything single thing that's manufactured in this country that utilises trucking services to get to the consumer—all of those prices are set to increase, adding inflationary pressure.

Perhaps a few of those opposite should have attended the parliamentary friends of trucking event that was held earlier this week, particularly around coal chain supply. Senator Sterle, their great colleague—he has a long history in the trucking industry—spoke of the heroes that exist in the trucking industry, yet his colleagues cannot help but to make those truckies lives more difficult more quickly with increased taxes. They're looking to make their road user charges increase. All of this they did not say before the last election.

For those in the bush it's not just the logistical issue, it's not just the trucking issues, it's not just the impacts that these broken promises will have on those farming families. One of the greatest concerns about the change to superannuation, the $3 million threshold that they claimed was 0.5 per cent that we now know is 10 per cent, is the unrealised asset of the family farm. Never before have we seen an Australian government try to implement a tax on an unrealised asset and yet, when asked directly how many Australian families, how many self-managed super funds are going to be impacted, they're embarrassingly silent. The prevarication of 'a modest change'. I can tell you it's not a modest change if you get a paper value increase on the family farm as part of your self-managed super funds and then, all of a sudden, you've got a tax bill and you have to sell the lifeblood and the history of your family to pay for this government's failure.