Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also want to add my comments, especially around the cost of living. We've heard all sorts of things about who voted for what or who didn't vote for what. The bottom line is that the government got their agenda through. They got their tax reform through. They got what they call 'cost-of-living relief' and what we call 'sugar hits' through. This chamber has stopped nothing, but they want to say, 'It's because we voted on it that things aren't better.' They got through everything they wanted to help with the cost of living—not everything they promised, but everything they brought to this place, but it is our fault because of how we voted. It made no difference to the outcome. That is what we get with this government. We don't get a fix; we get a long history of sugar hits and bandaids. When we have an economy that can slip back into recession, we throw in extra immigration to make sure that we don't go into recession. We go into per capita recession, but we don't go into actual recession. That's because we allow all these extra people to come in—365,000 in the last quarter, despite them saying that there will be a cap of 270,000. The economy still grows, but only because of the extra people we bring in. That is a bandaid.

When we hear that inflation is low, it's not underlying inflation; it's headline inflation because they give temporary handouts. That is the sugar hit. They never want to fix something; they want to cover it up. The problem is that, when you put bandaid upon bandaid upon bandaid on, sooner or later you'll have a shower and they'll all wash away. You know the bandaid comes off when it gets a bit wet in the shower. That's what's happening in this economy. That's what's happening in this government. The bandaids are coming off, and the wounds are still there because they haven't been treated.

The Reserve Bank governor, Michele Bullock, says that government spending is extending what's going on with inflation. The reason mums and dads are spending more every day of the week, the reason families are suffering and the reason all of this is going on is that the wound is government spending. The wound is government policy, and this government is running out of bandaids. Then there are the electricity rebates—the sugar hits, the sustenance. It's not on a good diet. It's not on a spending diet. It is feeding that problem, so all we do is delay it. Next quarter, when these rebates won't be there, inflation will go back up again. When you're governing to stay elected, you forget the real reason we're here—to govern the nation. When you govern to stay elected, you forget that you owe an obligation to the people who put you there to look after them, not yourself. And when we ask questions about the cost of living and the real policies, not the bandaids and the sugar hits, we hear nothing. This government has run into the bottom of the bag of ideas that will help. Instead, they are desperately grappling with things that will get them re-elected.

Today I heard a great debate from Senator McKim. He was talking about Labor's policy on the HECS debt change. That's their policy. They announced it. I love the move where they say, 'Here's a cost-of-living measure. If elected, this will happen.' This is where the test will come. If you believe in your policy, you will vote for the amendment on the cost of living. But you don't, and you won't. I believe everything that Senator McKim says, because it's all a game to stay elected. They don't care about the real cost of living. They don't care about cutting costs. They care about staying in the same offices in six months time.

Families have had enough. A report out today says that one in 10 people have a bill that a debt collector is actively handling. That's one in 10. When you're out there looking at those sorts of stats, the cost of living has gone too far. When Senator McGrath took note earlier, he talked about the difference between grassroots issues in America and grassroots issues here and the cost of living. In the last two years, real disposable income in the United States has gone up from two or three per cent. Here it has gone down 8.5 per cent. People have less. People are doing it tougher. We need to find ways of fixing things, not bandaiding things. We need to give people real reforms that will make their life easier, instead of these sugar hits that always come out. We come here and it's Ukraine, it's Trump; it's this and it's that.

Winners take responsibility. When the game is on the line, champions want the ball. If you don't want the ball, move out and let us, who want it, get it.