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

We have one more parliamentary sitting day tomorrow. Unusually, we will sit on a Friday. I don't recall whether we will have a question time, but if there is a question time, I'm hoping to have the opportunity to ask the question that I wanted to ask in question time today. Coalition senators would have seen me jump to my feet shortly after three o'clock in the hope and with the expectation that I would be able to ask my question. On this point, unfortunately, my Western Australian colleague Senator Pratt is wrong, because my question was going to be about the cost of living.

Now, of course, I won't detail for Senator Wong or opposition senators the exact nature of that question. That will be an element of surprise tomorrow. But Australians are ready for us to start talking about issues that are important to them. That is not to diminish the importance of the conversations and the questions and the other matters that are being raised in this Senate chamber this week. But the world is changing very quickly—too quickly for many Australian families—and just this week we saw for ourselves in the Sydney Morning Herald exactly what is happening to Australians' perception of their financial security and financial wealth. The Sydney Morning Herald reported this week that 64 per cent of Australians now expect their wages will fall in real terms and 33 per cent of Australians now believe that the RBA should be taking greater responsibility with regard to interest rates and inflation, but 44 per cent of Australians think it's time for the government to step up and tackle inflation.

Interest rate rises in our country are a direct result of whether or not the government is handling the inflation challenge. Eighty-two per cent of Australians now expect more interest rate rises into the future and 67 per cent of Australians expect inflation to get worse. Outside of this chamber, across the suburbs and communities, life is getting very difficult for Australian families. Australian families are getting nervous about their financial future, and there's good reason for that anxiety, because the most recent statement of monetary policy released by the RBA is very, very sober reading. It identifies that if there's not more effort by the government to tackle inflation then inflationary expectations are going to cement themselves in the Australian psyche. Already, we're told in the Sydney Morning Herald that 67 per cent of Australians are expecting that inflation will get worse. Once people start to expect inflation to get worse and that starts to cement in their minds, this inflationary challenge is not a blip but becomes a permanent stain.

Inflation makes you poorer. Inflation makes the poor poorer. It eats at your savings. It eats away at your superannuation. It is a curse, and we are lucky in this country that for a long period of time we have not had to take inflation seriously, because we've been operating in a very low inflationary environment. That is changing, and guess who is going to wear the pain the hardest? Guess who is going to wear it earliest? First home buyers.

Twelve months ago, in Perth, on 2 May 2022, Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister, was introduced by the former premier of Western Australia Mark McGowan. In front of that Perth audience, remembering that the Labor Party did very well at the last election in Western Australia, the Prime Minister—then opposition leader—said to Western Australians, speaking to the whole country, 'Life will get cheaper.' Don't just believe me; here it is in the Australian newspaper. It says, '"Life will be cheaper under me", says opposition leader Anthony Albanese.' Well, 12 months later it is not, and in 12 months time it will be significantly worse. The question for Labor is: what is their plan and what is the plan now? People are starting to feel the pain.

Question agreed to.