James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

But, Senator Henderson, they're not spending this money—which is not their money, by the way; it's the taxpayers' money—to address the cost of living. Now, I've spent the last five weeks driving around Queensland. I spent the last five weeks being up in the far north-west, being up in the Far North, being down in the south-west and all the places in between. We senators on this side of the chamber spend our time not locked up in capital cities or hiding in Canberra but out on the road listening to people because we do have ears. We use those ears directly in proportion to our mouths. We've got two ears and two eyes. We watch and we listen and then we speak, whereas the Labor Party is the other way round. They do a lot of speaking; they don't do much watching and they certainly do very little listening. That is why this bill is actually so simple. It will be so effective in helping, in a very unique way, address the cost-of-living crisis that is impacting all Australians.

I want to talk about some statistics. I don't like the word statistics, because I think sometimes statistics lead down the Mark Twain path, but this is very interesting in terms of facts that are relevant to how my fellow Queenslanders have been hurt in this cost-of-living crisis. We've had 11 interest rate rises—11 interest rate rises—under the Labor Party. This year close to a million people are going to fall off what is known as the mortgage cliff. What that means is they are going to go from having fixed rate mortgage repayments and they are going to be hit by going to variable rate mortgage repayments. This means that interest rates are going to be the highest they have been since 2011, and this means that in my home state of Queensland there actually is a housing crisis.

The housing crisis has come about because rents are going up, because mortgages are going up and also because power bills are going up. When you sit down with people and talk to them about the issues that are impacting how they live their lives and what is impacting upon their families, in Queensland the No. 1 issue is cost of living. In Queensland, we are very unlucky in that we have a state Labor government who will have been in power for 30 out of 35 years at the next state election. They are indolent, they are intellectually lazy, they are tired and they are caught up in the trappings of power, but they do not understand that the reason we all go into politics is not to seek power for the sake of power; we go into politics to make lives better for our fellow Queenslanders. The Queensland Labor Party, who are a cabal, merely used the instruments of state to better themselves at the expense of my fellow Queenslanders.

In Queensland at the moment, 55 cars are stolen each day. In Townsville, Phil Thompson is always fighting and standing up for the people of Townsville, along with Senator McDonald, who spoke in this debate. Senator McDonald is a strong voice for the north. They understand that in Townsville people not only have high electricity bills and high insurance premiums but also have the scourge of crime. In Townsville people don't just get their car stolen; what happens is these gangs of youths break into the house. That is crime No. 1: a home invasion. They will beat up the people living in the home. That is crime No. 2: assault or GBH. Then they steal the car. So people in Townsville get the criminal trifecta. They get three criminal acts that are performed on them—that they are attacked by. Then you have a state Labor government who have actually cut the number of police in Queensland. What happens is my fellow Queenslanders have to deal with crime, but they also have to deal with the cost of living.

That is why this bill is so important. Before the election, Prime Minister Albanese promised 97 times that he would reduce power prices by $275. I would encourage anyone in this chamber to put your hand up if you think your bill has gone down by $275. Let Hansard record that no-one put their hand up because no-one's power has gone down by $275. The parents of the school children upstairs listening and watching—hello—will be getting smacked by very expensive power bills. The journalists who, by lack of misfortune, may be listening to me speak at the moment, have certainly not had their power bills go down by $275. No-one in Queensland or Australia has seen their power bill go down by $275. Indeed, not only have power prices gone up; they've soared. They've exploded under Labor.

Since 1 July, power bills have gone up in South Australia by $512 a year and in New South Wales by $594 a year. In regional Queensland, where I live—I live out in the Darling Downs—our power bills have gone up $429 a year. Down the range, down in Brisbane, they have gone up $402 a year. What planet are these Labor Party politicians on? What medication has been taken by the decision-makers and the policymakers who think that it is acceptable that we have some of the world's highest electricity prices in a country which has so many natural resources?

Everybody likes to talk about renewable energy. Brilliant! But, if we've got all this free renewable energy, why are our power bills going up? If we have got all this coal—and we've lots of coal in Queensland; we've got clean coal in Queensland that we're very good at exporting to developing countries, like India, who want our coal because they know they want cheap and reliable electricity—why aren't we using more of our coal? Also, Australia has a third of the world's uranium. So, if you want net zero emissions and you want reliable electricity and you want affordable electricity, you need to take a pragmatic approach to this, and Australia needs to look at the resources we have. It is using uranium. It is using coal. It's using the sun. It's using wind. It's using gas. It's using whatever it takes for Queenslanders and Australians to have cheap, reliable electricity.

As I said before, what Senator Duniam's bill proposes is very, very simple. It just requires the Productivity Commission to compile quarterly reports on retail electricity prices as well as the sources from which electricity is being generated for each state and territory. Brilliant! How simple is that? Because, if you believe, as we do on this side of the chamber, in transparency and accountability, if you believe that the best way is to show how government works and how the economy works, you do that with information. I can go back to some basic economics—and I'll look through Paul Scarr's drawer where he has essentials of economics for dummies—to show people how a market operates. A market operates at its best when there is readily available information. It allows the consumer to make decisions. Also, it allows policymakers to make decisions using sunlight as a disinfectant. It will show to Australians how and why there are price rises, but also, importantly, it shows where power is coming from. Australians across the country deserve to know not just how much they are paying for their electricity but also how these amounts are changing over time and how they compare to what people in other parts of the country are paying. That will give businesses and families confidence about how they can manage their own budgets. It will help with planning in this cost-of-living crisis that Labor has created.

Labor has been in power for over a year now. In that year we've seen power bills go through the roof. We've seen mortgages go through the roof. We've seen rent go through the roof. We've seen insurance go through the roof. There actually isn't a roof left because so many things have been going through the roof that they've blown the roof away. What we're doing on this side of the chamber is proposing sensible suggestions to help Australians, to help Queenslanders deal with this cost-of-living crisis because what you're getting from the Labor Party is nothing. They talk about voices, but they don't listen and they will never listen to the voices that are already crying out for help.