David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of answers to questions asked by coalition senators. What has become increasingly apparent is a marked difference between the rhetoric and the ideology of those opposite and the reality faced by the Australian people. We saw today answers from ministers saying they take the advice of experts. And yet we see in a subsequent answer by the same minister a defence of decisions by this government where the advice of experts was actually ignored. We see the rhetoric about what this government is seeking to achieve in terms of cost-of-living relief, investment in the economy and things made in Australia, but the lived reality for people in Australia is different. It's fascinating to highlight that, despite the rhetoric of those [inaudible], the reality is that the national accounts figures have revealed the slowest GDP growth since the 1990s outside the period of the pandemic, the sixth quarter of negative GDP per person growth and the longest per-capita recession in 50 years. That's 18 months of a household recession under this government.

I do seem to recall a slogan during the last election saying, 'It won't be easy under Mr Albanese,' and that has certainly proven to be the case with living standards—that being the real disposable income per capita—falling by 8.7 per cent. I notice an article in the Australian Financial Review that highlights that Australia stands in stark contrast to most other comparable nations around the world. Productivity has collapsed by 6.3 per cent, household savings are down by 10.2 percentage points, personal income taxes are 25.3 per cent higher and interest paid on mortgages has almost tripled. Gas is up by 33 per cent. Electricity, nationally, is up by 14 per cent and by even more in my home state of South Australia, where—I'll just remind the Senate—despite all the rhetoric about the transition to variable renewables being the pathway for the future, South Australians are paying 45 cents per kilowatt hour, which is by a long stretch the most expensive power in Australia and amongst the most expensive electricity in the world. Rents are up 16 per cent, health is up 11 per cent, education costs are up 11 per cent, food is up by 12 per cent and financial and insurance products are up by 17 per cent. These have impacts on people in the real world. Despite the ideology and the rhetoric from those opposite, when I've visit the operator of a small caravan park in South Australia, she tells me about the fact that those rising insurance and electricity costs are making her business marginal in terms of the ability to continue trading and providing a service for people who choose to travel through or holiday in that part of regional South Australia.

The rhetoric we heard here today was from a government that says it listens to the experts. But we also had evidence here today that that is clearly not the case. If we are concerned about growth and economic opportunities and work and income for families, then you would think that we would be listening to the experts when approving investments in things like mines here in Australia. We heard today and we've seen in the press the fact that the experts in the case of McPhillamys mine in New South Wales—the state EPA—highlighted that the waters from the tailing dam would not affect the rivers and normal processes would look after that. We saw the fact that the local Indigenous body highlighted there were no issues from a cultural perspective to stop this project. Yet the minister concerned blocked the development of this mine by one action. It was a decision around the tailing dams which didn't come from the experts but came from a group of people who didn't even reveal their last names, in terms of the registration of the organisation, over facts which they said they couldn't disclose publicly because, essentially, they are secret business. This is not a government where the reality that affects Australia matches their reality.