Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'll start where Senator Ciccone finished in relation to the cost of living. He speaks about the 10 major reforms introduced by the current Labor government to address the cost of living. Judge those reforms. I say to the people sitting in the gallery or listening at home: judge the performance of this government based on the results of those reforms. What have been the results of those reforms? I'll tell you. The ABS employee living cost index released just last month says:

Employee households recorded the largest annual rise in living costs of all household types, rising 9.0% over the year.

Senator Ciccone talks about 10 major reforms introduced by the Labor government to address cost of living. What has actually happened? The result is a nine per cent increase in cost of living for employee households—those households who are least able to structure their living arrangements to take into account cost-of-living increases. Judge them not by words but by the consequences of their policies. The results of their policies are damning. What else does it tell us? Mortgage interest rate charges have risen 68.6 per cent on the year. For those employee households trying to pay off a mortgage, the costs of those mortgage payments have gone up by 68.6 per cent a year. Judge them by the results, not by their words. Annual CPI in this country is now 5.4 per cent.

You will hear those opposite blame inflation in this country on the war in Ukraine. It's all about the war in Ukraine. That's what they say: 'It has nothing to do with us. We can't do anything about it. It's the war in Ukraine.' The best way to test that proposition is to see what is happening in other jurisdictions—in other countries. Let me give you three examples. For the core inflation rate—that's the inflation rate you have when you exclude the most volatile attributes, namely oil and food, from the inflation rate—in the United States, the latest figures are 4.15 per cent. In Australia, it's 5.5 per cent—4.15 compared to 5.5 per cent. We're a world leader. The core inflation rate in Germany is 4.3 per cent; in Australia it is 5.5 per cent. The core inflation rate in Japan is 2.8 per cent; in Australia it is 5.5 per cent. So it doesn't matter whether you go to Europe, Asia or the Americas. The only thing this Albanese Labor government is leading in is cost-of-living increases and core inflation. That's the only thing. They say they've introduced 10 reforms to address cost of living. It's a good thing they haven't implemented 20, or we'd be even further behind. Every time they implement a reform, we go backwards. Judge them not by their words but by the results and by how by our international competitors are travelling. The results are quite damning.

There are implications to these cost-of-living increases. The first is for employees and those on social security benefits, who are least able to change their living arrangements to accommodate the cost of living, because they've got to spend every dollar they get. They're not savers; they're just living week to week, and they've got to spend every dollar. It's so hard for them to keep up and pay the bills.

But the second point is that the cost of doing anything in this country is going up, and we're seeing that—as addressed by the question asked by my good friend and colleague Senator Canavan—in relation to infrastructure projects. The federal government is in the process of considering slashing and burning major infrastructure projects across this country, including my home state of Queensland. There are currently infrastructure projects which were committed to in part by the coalition government during the last term, under which the federal government was going to contribute its share, $10.95 billion of infrastructure spending. They're all on the chopping block. So be very careful to see what happens on Melbourne Cup Day, because it's not only a great race that stops the nation; it's also when governments take out the rubbish.