James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Queen Marie Antoinette of France, the Queen Consort of Louis XVI, when advised by royal advisers to have said that the peasants were rioting because they couldn't afford to buy bread, is rumoured to have said, 'Well, let them eat cake.' I think of that story when I listen to the answers from the government ministers in this chamber, and it is a let-them-eat-cake government. It is a government that is out of touch and a government that fails to understand that there is a cost-of-living crisis in Australia. This cost-of-living crisis did not emanate from some Labor focus group that the secretary of the Labor Party briefed the cabinet on; this cost-of-living crisis has been going on for the last couple of years. Funnily enough, it coincides with the election of a big-spending Labor government who are spending an extra $315 billion of taxpayers' money, and this money is driving up the cost of living.

The question that I put to Senator McAllister, who is representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, was a very simple question. I asked the minister: in dollar terms, how much has the average electricity bill gone up since Labor was elected in May 2022? Now, you don't need to hold the front page to be told that the minister was unable to answer this question. The minister did not know how much the average electricity bill has gone up. So that should send a massive warning to every Australian about how out of touch this Labor government are when they don't know how much bills have gone up under their policies.

We have a Labor Party who, before the last election, promised 97 times that they would cut power bills by $275. For those listening at home, please put your hands up or shout loudly at the TV or the radio if you think that your power bill has gone down by at least $275 since the Labor Party have come to power. Of course, no-one's power bills have gone down. In fact, everybody's power bills under the Labor Party, because of the policies of the Labor Party, have gone up.

But it is not just the power bills that have gone up. Food has gone up by 11 per cent. Health has gone up by 11 per cent. Insurance has gone up by 17 per cent. We've had 12 mortgage rate rises. Rent has gone up 15 per cent yet we have a let-them-eat-cake government that is led by a weak Prime Minister. There are invertebrates at the bottom of the Mariana Trench that have stronger backbones than this Prime Minister. But he is not alone. If you look around the cabinet table, a cabinet table of union barons and former Labor Party advisers who do not understand how the economy operates or the importance of small business and the importance of employing people, the importance of the resource industry, the importance of just business generally to ensure that this economy can grow, we have a government who just like spending money. This goes to their inability to understand what is happening with people's power bills.

One of the questions we put to the minister was: will the Labor Party take a commitment to the next election that they will cut people's power bills? Once again, you don't need to hold the front page or turn down the computer to understand that the Labor Party refused to make that commitment, because, in a rare moment of a minister telling the truth by not actually answering the question, the minister actually said they would not be able to do that. The minister instead tried to deflect and play, disappointingly, partisan politics in relation to this issue.

This is a minister who fails to understand it is important that the Australian community understand that there are government decision-makers who sit around the cabinet table who understand the impact of a cost-of-living crisis in Australia. Sadly, we do not have that with the Labor Party here in Canberra. We have a Labor Party who instead just want to play their games, who want to effectively run a protection racket of the CFMEU, a union who, for the last decade upon decade, have brought thuggery to building sites around Australia and have also driven up the cost of living. It is a crisis, and the Prime Minister is to blame.

Question agreed to.