Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today.

Day by day, month by month, Australian families and businesses are feeling the real pain of Labor's poor economic management, but there are 25 people who do not believe that Australians are feeling the pain and that businesses are having to close their doors. Those 25 people are the 25 Labor Party senators that sit in this Senate chamber—because today we heard from the government that their economic plan is working. Well, Australian families and Australian businesses don't think the economic plan is working. In fact, we heard Senator Gallagher, the Minister for Finance, say that the cost-of-living crisis in our country is manufactured, meaning that it's not real, meaning that it's made up.

The data does not lie, and today we've had it confirmed by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia that Australians are now spending 20 per cent or more of their pretax income to pay their mortgages—a figure that we have not seen since the GFC and double what Australians were forced to pay in the 1990s. The CEO of the CBA, the Commonwealth Bank, went on to say: 'We expect to see further increases in arrears in the months ahead, given continued pressure on real household disposable incomes.' The CEO of the Commonwealth Bank is saying to Australian mortgage holders that it's going to get worse. The government, on the other hand, are saying that their economic plan is working, and the finance minister is saying that the cost-of-living crisis is manufactured. But there's more bad news in the figures. The value of past-due home loans has increased from $14.8 billion to $17.6 billion, an increase of $2.8 billion—money that people can no longer afford to find to meet their mortgage repayments.

The data gets worse. Personal loan arrears of more than 90 days have climbed to 1.5 per cent, which is higher than the 1.25 per cent that has been the average for the past 15 years. Australian businesses, including in my home state of Western Australia, are being forced to close their doors. Insolvency rates are rising. ASIC tells us there have been 11,000 insolvencies in the last months. In the June quarter alone in Western Australia there were 379 insolvencies—one every seven hours. And the government says the cost-of-living crisis is manufactured and that their economic plan is working.

Australians want to know why it is that, in just two years, they are feeling significantly poorer as a result of the economic management of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Prior to the election in May 2022, the Prime Minister made the big, bold claim in my home town of Perth, Western Australia, that Labor would make life better and Labor would make life easier for people with mortgages. That's not true. Australians have gotten poorer, living standards are falling and people are finding it harder and harder to call this country the lucky country. I suspect that many Australians feel that their luck has now run out. And this government says they've got nothing to worry about because the economic plan is working—apparently—and the cost-of-living crisis is manufactured and make-believe. That's not what people are feeling. I challenge Anthony Albanese, when he comes to Western Australia, to walk the streets of Perth and see it for himself. People are hurting and are poorer thanks to him and his Labor government.