Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have been listening, and I don't know where to begin, to be quite frank. I'll go back to what Senator Wong said to Senator Birmingham, which is that Australians don't want a recession, but we do actually have a technical recession. We have had six quarters of negative GDP per capita. We are in a technical recession, whether we want one or not. And then the response to Senator Hume's question was around the government not agreeing with our economic descriptions of what is going on in Australia. You don't have to agree with the opposition. The Reserve Bank and economists across the economy are actually giving the same descriptions. I'll just give you two. One from the AFR yesterday said:

Higher spending and lower company tax revenue will push the budget into a deeper deficit this financial year, according to economists at Deloitte who forecast Treasurer Jim Chalmers will have presided over the largest deterioration in government finances on record outside the pandemic.

That's not the coalition saying that. Another one—this time from the Australiansaid:

Economist Saul Eslake said it was possible negative growth on this measure would continue for the next two quarters before rising again. "It is significant issue … while GDP per capita is not quite as salient to voters as real disposable income, the two are very closely linked … it's another indicator that the economy is performing poorly," Mr Eslake told The Australian.

That gives us some perspective about what's being said.

Then I thought about what Senator Bilyk was saying around the government working hard to make the situation better and that some pretty good stuff had been done, particularly to get wages moving. For me, that's quite ironic because, in working hard to make the situation better, what we actually have is health costs going up 10.4 per cent, education going up 11.5 per cent and food going up 11.7 per cent. That's not better for people needing medical treatment, paying for education or buying food. By the same token, housing has gone up 12.9 per cent. Rent has gone up 16 per cent. Insurance has gone up 18 per cent, and gas has gone up 33.9 per cent. This is 'making the situation better', according to the government. Well, it's certainly not better for everyday Australians, who can't afford to fill their cars up with petrol and who are deciding what will or will not go into the trolley and determining which bills they will pay this week to stretch out their ever-reducing disposable income.

That takes me to my next point. Getting wages moving again isn't relevant whatsoever when disposable income has dropped 5½ per cent under this government since 2022. You're effectively giving with one hand and taking away with the other. So we need to get some clarity around what Australians are really experiencing, and it is not good. I've spoken about this before. I've spoken about it many times. Young Australians believe, no matter how hard they work, they will never own their own home. Can you imagine what it's like to try and save to buy a home when everything that you need to pay for and buy is getting more and more expensive? How are you meant to save? You've got no options to cut back on your food and on your housing—your rent. If you're saving to buy a home, unless you're living at home with mum and dad, you are paying rent, and that has gone up 16.4 per cent.

This government is sitting there and telling us that they're doing a great job. 'Everything is really good. We've made everything better. We've done some pretty good stuff.' Well, I'm telling you that, when you go out there and when you speak to everyday Australians, they're not saying that they are better off. They are saying that they are absolutely worse off. I think we need to get away from the talking points and the narratives and some of the bubble mentality and go, 'What is actually happening to everyday Australians?' And that is that they cannot afford the things that they need to buy, and they need people in this building to act to make things better.

Question agreed to.