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

I won't repeat the quote, even though it's a very famous quote. Clearly those opposite—in this chamber and as a government—are terribly sensitive about their approach to public policy if they can't even stand mild criticism. They continuously trot out this claim that electricity prices are falling, when every single Australian knows when they receive their electricity bill that those prices are going up and up and up. Not one Australian has seen a reduction in their energy bills off the back of anything this government has done.

Let's just go through some of the numbers we've seen in the last 15 months under the Labor Party. The cost of food is up 8.2 per cent, the cost of housing is up 10.4 per cent, the cost of insurance is up 17.3 per cent, the cost of electricity is up 18.2 per cent and the cost of gas is up 28 per cent. Yet those opposite have the gall to criticise us for voting against their terrible policy in relation to electricity and their awful policy in terms of gas. These policies are adding to the inflationary pressures in the economy, not taking inflationary pressures out of the economy. This Labor government have no clue how to deal with inflation. Their budgets pushed more money into the economy. A number of senior economists have said that Labor budgets were pushing inflationary pressures into the economy. Today, with this interest rate rise, we see the result of Labor's policies.