Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I indicate that the opposition will not be pursuing the amendment that we had proposed to move. Despite that, the coalition won't be opposing this motion. We don't think a Senate inquiry is in any way going to make up for the 18 months of inaction by the Labor government that have created this home-grown inflation and made this cost-of-living crisis a lot worse than it ever had to be. Rather than empower the ACCC to monitor these issues, Labor have let the inflation problem get much worse. Australia has the most entrenched inflation amongst advanced economies according to the magazine the Economist, and the best thing Labor can do to support the cost of living is to rein in spending to bring down inflation. Instead, Labor have spent more than $20,000 per household—that's taxpayers' money, not the government's money—on coming into government. We'll support this because we want to make sure we get to the bottom of these problems. It's a pity we couldn't move our amendment, but we'll talk about that another time.

Question agreed to.