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

I also rise to speak this morning on the Productivity Commission Amendment (Electricity Reporting) Bill 2023. There are only three issues which the Labor government need to keep top of mind. They are the same three issues that Australians need to keep top of mind when they come to judge the performance of the government at the election, most likely late next year. Those things are interest rates, inflation and productivity. They are issues that the government would like to avoid. They are issues that go to the core of the current and future financial prosperity and success of Australian families. They will protect Australia, if they're managed carefully, from future economic harm and distress and future economic shocks that we can only speculate on at the moment.

The productivity one is by far the most important and the most urgent because, put simply, improvements in productivity in Australia improve living standards for Australians. Anything that reverses productivity gains, anything that diminishes productivity across the Australian economy dampens or worsens the living standards for Australians today and, importantly, also for the children and grandchildren of Australians into the future. So it's productivity that is the core and most immediate challenge facing the government, indeed facing the whole country, and I'll come to why this modest improvement presented in this private senators bill is necessary and, while modest, would be a very constructive addition to our transparency and reporting over energy prices.

It's important to add that any discussion that this country wants to have, led by the Labor government, with regard to wages and inflation is a hollow discussion unless it also involves discussion about productivity gains. And you don't have to be Einstein to know that at the moment, after more than 12 months in government, this Labor Party wants to avoid discussions on productivity despite the fact that the Productivity Commission has just recently released its roadmap into how Australia can achieve those future productivity gains. During a Senate inquiry process recently, it was revealed that the Productivity Commission itself had confirmed to senators that the Treasurer, Dr Chalmers, had not even found the time to meet with the Productivity Commission to be briefed on its ideas, its findings and its recommendations contained in its most recent five-year productivity review. I was present for that revelation. It is quite remarkable that the person who is most responsible for the economic direction of this country, the Treasurer—it's in his job title—has not yet found the time to speak with the Productivity Commission about its report. It is a thousand pages of plans, ideas and recommendations for how we can move this country forward and secure future productivity gains that will improve the living standards of Australians into the future.

If that wasn't bad enough, it was then revealed that the Prime Minister has not found time to discuss, inquire into or be curious about this 1,000-page report prepared by the Productivity Commission on what is the future plan for productivity reform in this country. That is alarming, and it should send bells ringing in every Australian household. If the Prime Minister and the Treasurer are not interested in discussing and exploring how we're going to tackle productivity reform in this country, why would anyone else in the government think it's important? The answer to that is: no-one would. If the Prime Minister doesn't think he should give the Productivity Commission his time, if the Treasurer doesn't think he should give the Productivity Commission his time, then no other Labor minister in the government is going to think it's worthy of their time either.

There was an interesting remark the other day by Deloitte Access Economics which I think is very important. It goes to the conversation around inflation, which, with interest rates, with productivity reform, is a critical economic issue facing the country. The government has sought to portray the recent quarterly decrease in inflation as a success. I will come to why it's not a success in a brief moment. Deloitte Access Economics had this to say about the inflation battle:

… defence against the supply side challenges which are driving underlying inflation in Australia needs to come in the form of a wider set of economic policies, namely fiscal policy, investment and innovation to lift productivity, competition policy to improve efficiency and erode market power, and tax policy to boost prosperity.

When we hear the government talk about inflation, its conversations around inflation are very narrow. 'Look how well we have done,' the government tries to say; I will tell you why it has not done very well shortly. The government doesn't want to engage on that broader suite of issues which will be necessary if we are going to bring down inflation in a meaningful and sustainable way so it does not continue to wreak havoc on the Australian economy. Inflation is a great economic evil—perhaps the greatest economic evil—and the government is being tardy, is being slow and is being narrow in wanting to address the inflation dragon that is wreaking havoc across the Australian economy.

We will go to a vote on this bill shortly. If the government can't embrace a simple, modest but transformative initiative like this, contained in Senator Duniam's private senator's bill, how can they possibly be interested and how can they possibly be trusted to engage, embrace and advance the much bigger reforms that are necessary in the Australian economy? The answer to that is: they can't. The answer to that is: they won't.

Make no mistake about it, Anthony Albanese is not Bob Hawke and Jim Chalmers is not Paul Keating. There are some virtues in that, I'm absolutely sure of that. But when it comes to the economic reform agenda and when it comes to the productivity reform agenda—to be fair, Mr Hawke and Mr Keating were supported by Mr Howard and the coalition, who offered up significant and important bipartisanship on important economic reforms—Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers are not Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. That has been demonstrated enough already, but that will be demonstrated over the course—and, we would hope, the limited course—of this government.

The inflation challenge in the country continues to be real and continues to be urgent. As I said, the government is interested in trying to convince people that it has made welcome progress. The Treasurer remark earlier this week was that the government had made 'welcome progress' in tackling inflation. Yesterday the Australian Bureau of Statistics blew open the myth that the government is dealing with inflation. Yesterday the ABS released its Selected living cost indexes, which come out regularly from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It said that over the 12 months to June 2023, all living cost indexes—and there are five—rose by between 6.3 per cent and 9.6 per cent. That means that in the last 12 months prices rose between six and nine per cent. So, when Australians are going shopping, filling up their car and buying financial services products and they are feeling the financial pain and they are thinking, 'Why am I not getting as much from my dollar as I used to get?' it's because the government hasn't met the inflation challenge.

The ABS went on to say:

Employee households recorded the strongest quarterly and annual rises due to increases in Mortgage interest charges.

Those mortgage interest charges are the cumulative effect of 11 rate rises under this government. Just to be clear, employee households, in the mind of the ABS, are those households whose primary source of income is wages and salary. Many of us can relate to that. Many of the constituents we represent would fall into that particular category. The ABS went on to say that employee households—that is, those with a primary source of income such as wages and salaries—recorded the largest annual rise, of 9.6 per cent, on record. The ABS has blown the whistle. The government has achieved a record, and that record is inflicting financial harm on Australian families. That record is that employee households recorded the largest annual rise on record. That is what the ABS released yesterday.

It goes on to say:

Mortgage interest changes makes up a higher proportion of expenditure for Employee households. Mortgage interest charges rose 91.6 per cent, the largest annual rise on record, driven by banks passing on the RBA's multiple cash rate rises over the year.

Why has the RBA had to have layer upon layer upon layer of interest rate rises? It's because the government has not been doing enough. Eleven interest rate rises are the RBA's verdict and judgement on the performance of the government in tackling inflation in the Australian economy. It is bad, and guess who is wearing the cost of that? It is the electors, the families and the businesses across Australia.

So I have a question for the government: where does it think this pain is being felt? I can tell you where the pain is being felt. It is being felt not exclusively but predominantly in outer suburban areas of our cities, which at the most recent election predominantly chose to elect Labor members of parliament because Anthony Albanese said in May 2022, on the verge of the election, that life would be cheaper under Labor. Don't believe me. The front page of the Australian newspaper on 22 May said that life would be easier under Labor.

Well, after 11 rate rises, life has not become easier. The ABS is saying that costs for families are the highest they have been on record. Labor has not delivered on its commitment that life would be easier for Australian families, and now, when we have a bill that contains a modest but important transformative reform that will bring transparency to the issue of energy prices, the government can't even muster the courage and the foresight to agree to this private senator's bill. That is a capital-F failure. So, next year, when Australians go to judge the government on interest rates, inflation and productivity, the Australian community will give the government a big F for failure.