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

Let's put a few facts on the table. First of all, we've heard a fair bit about wages from those opposite. The coalition in government delivered real wage rises across Australia until—guess what?—there was this thing called the pandemic. Across the period of the coalition government there were real wage rises. What has the Labor government delivered? It's delivered real wage decreases at staggering, record rates. Senator O'Neill talked about when inflation peaked. In fact, inflation peaked in the fourth quarter, the final quarter, of fiscal year '22. When was the election? I'm sure my colleagues remember—I think it was in May. So the final quarter of '22 would have been under the Labor government. And that's when inflation peaked at a 32-year high of 7.8 per cent.

Those opposite have no clue about how to tackle the cost-of-living crisis facing ordinary Australians. We saw it in the budget, with economist after senior economist coming out and saying that the budget was acting against the interests of lowering inflation. I've read these quotes into Hansard before; I won't do it again. There is quote after quote after quote from senior economists: Stephen Anthony, managing director at Macroeconomics Advisory; Chris Richardson, economist at Rich Insight; David Bassanese, chief economist at BetaShares; Andrew Boak, chief economist at Goldman Sachs. I could go on: George Tharenou, economist at UBS; Michael Blythe, chief economist at PinPoint Macro Analytics; and Cherelle Murphy, chief economist at EY Oceania. All have cast doubt on the Labor government's budget, saying it puts downward pressure on inflation.

I give the Reserve Bank credit. The Reserve Bank took a month off. They took a month to watch what the Labor Party budget was doing to the economy, as they should have—that's the Reserve Bank's job. The Reserve Bank's job is to watch what the government is doing with the levers at its disposal, watch what is happening in the general economy and then decide whether they have to raise interest rates again. And guess what? A month after the budget, after they had considered the impacts of the Labor government's policy, they felt they had to act by raising interest rates again because, in the opinion of the Reserve Bank, the Labor government budget was clearly not putting downward pressure on interest rates.

Now, let's look at some of the other policies that those opposite laud as having a downward impact on the cost of living and inflation—for instance, their gas policy. They regularly criticise us for not having supported a poorly thought-out gas policy that actually reduced investment in gas. Putting price caps in place is a sure way over the long term to push the price up. Not only will it push the price up in the longer term; it's also deferring investment. You need new investment because the only sure way of putting downward pressure on price in the longer term is to actually have new supplies coming into the market. Instead of encouraging investment, they are actually deterring investment. You don't have to take my word for it: let's listen to the head of one of Japan's top energy think tanks, Mr Terazawa, who stated on the public record:

Australia has been our most trusted supplier of LNG. Unfortunately, the recent policy changes in Australia put serious questions on the future role of Australia as a reliable supplier of LNG.

What does that mean? It means that Japan, which has been significantly responsible for investments into Australia and into Australian gas fields, bringing supply online, is going to Canada.