Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

CADELL (—) (): I move:

That the Senate take note of all answers by the government to coalition questions.

It's another day, another question time, and here I am again. I was looking for something original to say in my take note, but same old story over and over again. We ask the questions and we get a history reel of what happened nine years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago and 30 years ago, but that's not what the people of Australia are after. They're after the vision, the hope, the optimistic view of what will happen in five years, in two years. How will their lives be better in one year? How will they meet their mortgage interest or their energy payments next month? But we don't get that here. We are a long way from getting that here. I noted Minister Farrell was talking about the 'years and years' ago of other policy when avoiding saying the number $275. That's what we are doing. We are avoiding talking about what we can do in this chamber, avoiding what this government will do to make lives better for the people of Australia.

That's the scary bit because saying something isn't doing something. Saying we will put nurses into nursing homes isn't getting it done. Saying we will drop $275 on your energy bills isn't doing that. I like that, every time it comes up, we're reminded that we stood in the way or we didn't support the gas cap. This is like when your dog is attacking your cat and the answer of someone else is to shoot the dog and you're accused of not supporting the cat. It is a wrong thing to do. Your energy policy is wrong. To cap this thing is wrong. Not supporting something doesn't mean you're trying to get the outcome. It is a wrong policy and the wrong thing to do. That poor dog.

There are people out there suffering 30, 50 or 60 per cent energy rises That's what is going on, and a gas cap is not helping them. They can say what it would have been, what it could have been. I wouldn't be here. I'd be having a lovely week off if I had the lotto numbers last week, but I didn't and I'm here. This is what we get every time from this. We get avoidance of what actually happened. We get avoidance of the policies. We get a history revision. It's almost like Minister Farrell is auditioning for a sequel, pitching to Hollywood AnInconvenient Truth 2: the Avoidance. We can't do that forever. The Australian people need more.

We talk about wage growth and how it was a preset policy of the government for wage growth to be low, but it was wage growth. We noted that in December there was the highest real wage drop on record—not in 10 years, not in five years, not in a month. On record, the highest real wage growth was just in December. That is the difference between a government doing things and saying things. This is a government very good at saying things. It is not a government that is very good at doing things. That's where we can come together. There are very good people in this room. There are very good people in the other room. But we are stuck in the hype and hyperbole of the election promises and of beliefs and philosophies, and practical things aren't happening. We have seen that so many times when there are simple, practical steps that can make people's lives better. We could be talking about it, but we're not.

We talk about the irony of what happened over the last three years, where we had COVID and there were failures in aged care. We can own that. It had never been put under such pressure as what we had. What we are looking for is a way forward. That is why we all came here. We didn't come here to hurl abuse across the chamber. It's a bit of fun. We have a bit of theatre for an hour, but it's not why we came here. We came here to try to improve the lots of people in our electorates, our regions, our states and our families, people we know and care about. That isn't done by not taking responsibility.

So we always ask the questions. We never get the answers. The sad thing is the Australian people don't get the answers either. They don't get the answers to what this government is going to do so that they can pay their mortgages, with interest rates going up nine times since this government was elected. It's not all their fault. I'm not saying it's their fault. We don't have to apportion blame. We have to create hope, and we aren't doing that. We need to do things better. We aren't seeing how we're creating enough energy to put downward forces on energy prices. That is the thing we need to. That is the thing we should be doing. I look forward to this government realising that and doing more.