Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) 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.

You've got to wonder: is it dirty-deal Thursday or clearing-the-decks Thursday? Or is it a little bit of both going on—the dirty deals scattered around the chamber or the clearing the decks? Apparently, there's quite a lot of deck clearing going on both here and in the other place.

I hear, while we've been here, toiling away doing the Senate's business—of course, under another outrageous guillotine by those opposite—that, in the other place, it's been valedictory speeches. Labor MPs are saying farewell. They're saying goodbye. Do they know something that we don't know? Is there a reason why there's been such a rush from the Albanese government to clear the decks, to deal with legislation and to guillotine after guillotine and get it all done but also have their Labor MPs say, 'Ta-ta, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye', as they leave this place?

Is the Prime Minister really that worried that the Australian economy is about to crash that he is willing to give up 10 months of his term? Is Mr Albanese really that worried that interest rates staying higher for longer, inflationary pressures on Australians staying as high as they are and a cost-of-living crisis that Australians are facing mean he should run scared to the polls? Is that what he's thinking?

Well, perhaps that is what he should be thinking. Mr Albanese perhaps should be worried about the fact that his policies continue to make life harder for Australians and that, every single day that goes by, Australians see how those policies are making life harder for them and they keep feeling the pain of higher interest rates and higher inflation and of not even being able to afford the basics of living anymore.

As we saw in question time today, there are revelations that Australians are buying less chicken meat. It's the most consumed and most affordable protein in Australia, and people are cutting back on it. If Australians are at the point that they're cutting back on chicken meat, what else are they forgoing in their day-to-day lives? Just how stretched are their budgets?

This is a government that was elected promising that Australian families would be better off. They promised that electricity bills would be down some $275. What happened to the $275? Trashed, gone, abandoned by the government. Instead they say, 'But we're giving people $300 this year.' What has the Reserve Bank said about that? They've called it out as the trickery that it is. It's a one-off. Bills will spike right back afterwards, and Australians will be left worse off as always. This government promised Australians would be better off, and yet real household disposable income is down 7.5 per cent under the Albanese Labor government. Prices are up. Electricity is up. Household costs are up. But household disposable income is down. It's no wonder Australians are cutting back on the raw essentials like chicken meat.