Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, where's the guillotine? They love that. I think we'd actually support it at this stage, because a bill has got to go through, so let's just bring it on. But no. We can't do that, because then what are we going to talk about later? They're all non-contro bits of legislation that everyone's supporting, with very few amendments, so what are we going to talk about?

This is the appalling behaviour of this government, aided and abetted by their mates at the end of the chamber, when all Australians are facing a cost of living crisis. The Guardian is not one of my usual sources of news, but I noticed that even the Guardian, the cheer squad for those opposite, was commenting yesterday on the fact that almost half of all Australians with mortgages are already experiencing mortgage stress, and that was before the rate rise yesterday. So they were already in mortgage stress and facing cost-of-living pressure, yet the government don't understand basic economic terms. They waste half an hour on an absolutely ridiculous stunt. If you want to have a look at some of the inappropriate commentary that's been going on in this place, let's have a look at the support for Hamas that we've seen from some people in this place. There has been beheading and burning of babies and murder of families and of young people who were at a music festival in Israel.

But somehow an offer of a lift to the airport is the most offensive thing that's ever been heard in this chamber. What a joke.

And all this is at the time when the average Australian family with a mortgage of around $750,000 now has to find an extra $24,000 per year. That's not really change that most of us have down the back of the couch. Maybe some of those that got payouts from the union before they headed into the Senate on the ALP ticket got a bit of a boost from them. That $24,000 is not a lot to them, but to most Australians it's a lot of money. And it's $24,000 after tax, so it's an awful lot of money that families have to find and earn just to be able to afford their mortgage. And this is before they even think about putting food on the table—that's gone up over eight per cent—and before they turn the lights on. Heaven forbid that, when we have a really hot summer this year, anyone wants to put air conditioning on, because no-one can afford their power bills, but those opposite—the transparency stuff is just gone. Don't even say that word; the opaque mess they operate under is a joke. The referendum was an election commitment, so we had to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on that, but the election commitment of reducing power bills by $275 has just gone by the wayside. They cannot even mention $275.

This government has become the government of Grinch. They are going to do everything they can through their economic vandalism to destroy Christmas for so many Australian families this year. It is absolutely obscene. Here they are laughing and joking about the mortgage stress that families are going to be under. The senator that was just having a good chuckle about the government of Grinch: you know what? You go and talk to those Australian families who are now wondering how they're going to pay the mortgage because of your economic recklessness and inability to understand even basic economic terms.