Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister representing the Treasurer (Senator Gallagher) to a question on notice asked by Senator Hume today relating to the cost of living.

We continue to see from this government a selective memory, where they forget the things they said and promised to the Australian people before the last election. They promised the Australian people a reduction of $275 a year in their electricity bills. They didn't promise that once; they promised that 97 times before the last election. Yet they forget about that. They talk about interest bill relief to selected Australians, but they promised every Australian a reduction of $275 a year in their energy bills, and they conveniently forget that when they're answering questions now. They don't want to know about that. They don't want to know about the fact that this is a government of broken promises.

They promised Australians higher real wages. They promised that to all Australians on multiple occasions. Yet under this government real wages are going backwards. That's not what the Australian people were promised before the election. The government neglect to note the fact that under the nine years of coalition government real wages actually increased; real wages went up under the coalition government. In the 15 months of the new Labor government they are going backwards. The government promised Australians lower inflation. How's that going? Another broken promise from this government: they promised a lower cost of living. In fact, I remember the phrase from I think the then shadow Treasurer, now Treasurer, 'Everything's going up except your wages.' Well, it's going backwards at a faster rate now than it was prior to the last election.

Another broken promise from this government: they promised lower housing costs. They said they were going to reduce the housing costs of Australians. Well, someone on a $750,000 mortgage is now paying $24,000 per year more for their housing. And if you look at a more modest circumstance, like in my home state of Tasmania, where the average mortgage is about $460,000, you're still paying $14,000 to $15,000 more than you were when the government came to office 15 months ago. It is a government of broken promises. And when you look at the overall situation in relation to where we sit in the context of the OECD, with all these promises that we would be better off, we're actually going backwards faster than almost any other developed economy. And the government do what they have been doing for so long: deflect, blame somebody else, try to blame the now opposition. Yet they now own this problem. They have had two budgets. They've got one more budget before the next election. Yet they're still not prepared to take responsibility for their decisions and for their actions.

They talk about increasing productivity, yet what are they doing in respect of the labour market? Legislating in support of more disruption of the labour market by the union movement. They put it in tricky language. They put it in the context of trying to get wages moving again. But, as we've already discussed, real wages are going backwards under this government, whereas they went forward under the last government.

They try and blame international pressures. Interestingly, before the last election, the Treasurer said Australians couldn't give a stuff about what effect global factors had on the cost-of-living crisis, so what he said before the election is completely the opposite of what he's saying after the election. He wouldn't accept the excuse of global factors prior to the election, but he's happy to run with it now.

This government continues to break its promises to the Australian people. It promised higher real wages but is delivering lower real wages. It promised lower electricity prices but is delivering higher electricity prices. It's about time this government took responsibility for its own actions and kept its promises.