Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Since I arrived in this place, the No. 1 issue that we have been dealing with is the cost-of-living crisis or the cost-of-everything crisis. The cost of everything has gone up, whether it's for simple things like bread, butter, milk or petrol or more expensive things like insurance. The most crippling increases are to mortgages and rent. These are things that people can't cut back on. You can't pay less of your mortgage and you can't pay less of your rent. Whether it be people reaching out because they are on the verge of homelessness or because they require crisis support, every single day my office receives call after call from people in some kind of crisis. Yet this government, which is distracted at the best of times, has lost sight of its obligation to improve the standard of living of all Australians.

Labor was elected on the back of a number of promises, not the least of which was a promise to reduce electricity prices by $275 a year. The residents of my state of New South Wales are paying up to 39 per cent more for their electricity this year. On average, that's over $1,000 extra each year. These endless hikes to energy prices cripple family budgets and devastate small businesses and Australian manufacturing. The government's solution is what I feel is an insulting $75-a-quarter rebate paid to big energy companies. That's 80c a day. Yes, thanks for that! What's more egregious is that it's not means tested, so those with multiple homes get multiple rebates on their energy bills. Australians without holiday homes dotted across the country simply receive a single rebate. It doesn't seem fair. That's because it's not.

Rebates won't fix the energy crisis looming; they simply can't mask its effects. Until this government get serious on the big issues to shore up our energy grid and provide long-lasting and cheap energy, Australians will continue to have to endure increasing energy costs—and that's not good enough. The flow-on effects of that only compound the pain. It costs more to keep the lights on, it costs more to transport goods, it costs more to manufacture, it costs more to refrigerate and so on. Do you know what that's called? That's called inflation. And who ends up paying? The Australian consumer. It's mum and dad Australians.

We shouldn't be afraid of big ideas. We need to be serious about solving these problems by being technologically neutral and understanding that renewables are a key component of our mission to get to net zero. We should also leave the door open to new technologies and sources of clean energy. If those opposite think that nuclear energy is completely unviable then maybe they should lift the moratorium on nuclear. If it is an impossible feat then there is no need for legislation banning it. We want people and businesses who are struggling with the cost of everything to have all the possible tools, from solar panels to batteries and heat pumps, to bring down their energy prices and shield themselves from the back-to-back energy shocks that this government has thrown at them. This energy crisis is a part of the cost-of-living crisis and, as with mortgages, rent and groceries, this government doesn't have it under control. Aside from this poorly conceived 80c a day, this government hasn't done much but delegate the responsibility of managing inflation to the Reserve Bank. In turn, every Australian who has a home loan, who has a small business loan or is renting will pay. These are the Australians who are managing inflation for this government.

Who doesn't bear the pain? Big companies, big institutions and people without a mortgage. They can and they do keep spending. Do you see the problem? It's pretty clear that this single blunt lever is not working. And it isn't the RBA's job to run the economy; it's the government's. While this government focuses on their own party room politics, more and more Australians are giving up the dream of homeownership, and more and more small businesses close down, and more and more irreversible damage is done.