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

I, too, rise to speak on this urgency motion. It's rare that I stand here to speak on a Greens urgency motion. I agree with the words of the urgency motion that the government has betrayed Australians. They have betrayed Australians, perhaps not in the same way as the Greens would characterise that betrayal. But the betrayal that I see most starkly is the betrayal of refusing to confront the scourge of inflation in this budget and in last year's budget. Inflation is a secret hidden tax on every Australian. Whether you've got $10 in the bank or $1,000 in the bank thousand or $100,000 in the bank, inflation makes you poorer. It reduces the spending power of the money you have. If you are one of those people who needs to spend everything they earn or receive in benefits, inflation is a curse.

Make no mistake: inflation is a betrayal. Any government that fails to tackle inflation seriously and leaves all the heavy lifting in the inflation space up to the Reserve Bank is betraying Australians, every Australian, from the poorest to the wealthiest. It is a betrayal of our nation; it is a betrayal of every business in this country. It erodes the buying power of every Australian. It means that, when they go to the shops, their purchasing power is reduced; the basket of goods they can buy is smaller. It means that, when they go to fill up their car at the petrol station in the face of very high petrol costs, they also face inflationary costs. That means the value of the dollar in their pocket is less. That means that, instead of putting in a full tank of fuel, people have to decide whether to put in half a tank of fuel. It leads to massive declines in real wages. This is something I will dwell on because those opposite keep insisting they are the champions of the workers when, in actual fact, the record is very clear and very stark that they are betraying every worker in this country by not tackling the curse of inflation.

Throughout the period of the last coalition government, contrary to the myths spread by those opposite, real wages actually grew. Real wages grew until we were hit by a once-in-a-century pandemic. Real wages grew under the coalition government, and what did we see? The Labor government came in and failed to tackle the curse of inflation, and now we see real wages plummeting. The December quarter saw a 4½ per cent decline in real wages in this country—a decline not seen in decades. That is what inflation does, and that is why the failure of this government to tackle the scourge of inflation in this budget is the ultimate betrayal of every Australian family, of every Australian business and of every Australian voter.

Let's hear what some serious economists said about this Labor budget. It's not just me or those of us on this side of the chamber saying this. Stephen Anthony, Managing Director at Macroeconomics Advisory, said: 'This was Jim Chalmers chance to really cut. In fact, he's a net spender. Over his two documents so far and his two budgets over the last 12 months, he is making life harder for the RBA and for working Australians because he's not getting to the meat of the problem.' Chris Richardson, from Rich Insight, said: 'If you want to do all the fairness stuff and at the same time keep the Reserve Bank on the bench, I'd say you need to take some tough decisions, and, by and large, we haven't seen those tough decisions. I had thought, after the surprise rate rise from the Reserve Bank last month, that they were done and dusted. I'm less clear now that that's the case.' I have four or five other quotes from economists demonstrating that this government has completely failed to tackle inflation, and that is the ultimate betrayal.