Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Ghosh talks about the so-called coalition narrative. I'll tell you what the narrative is: Labor promised the cost of living would be lower if they were elected. That's the narrative. And the narrative from there is Labor didn't do what they promised they would do. They promised a lower cost of living. They haven't delivered that. In fact, the numbers came through last week that show that. If Senator Ghosh wants to use point-in-time metrics that's fine but, last week, the figures came in and they demonstrate that the cost-of-living index shows that, for Australian's hardworking families, it's up 19.4 per cent since they came to power.

Labor promised a lower cost of living; they haven't delivered that. They haven't done what they promised they'd do. It's as if they had no idea of what was going on in the economy before the election. Suddenly, after the election, everything has changed and they can't keep their promises. Of course they promised to lower power prices by $275. Now we never hear the words $275 uttered and power prices are up by more than $1,000, not down by $275—that will never happen—and that's after the cost-of-living relief.

They promised higher real wages, yet real wages have gone backwards under Labor. Despite what Senator Ghosh said a moment ago, real wages rose under the term of the coalition. No wonder Australians are angry. They were promised all of these things by Anthony Albanese before the election. Ninety-seven times, he promised a $275 reduction in power prices, and that will never happen. No chance!

He promised lower housing costs. Someone in my community is paying something like $14,500 more on their mortgage than they were before the election. How does that relate to lower housing costs? Rents are up by 17 per cent. How does this relate to the Prime Minister's promises of a lower cost of living if he was elected? Why is it, I'm wondering, that nobody believes the Prime Minister when he makes these commitments and promises now? It's because he didn't keep any of his promises from before the election.

Food is up by 12 per cent. Here's the real absurdity with respect to what is going on with Labor's narrative on food: they're saying that they're going to get a better deal for farmers—to a farmer that means they'll get paid more—but, of course, they're promising lower prices at the supermarket. Tell me how that works.

This is the stuff that we're being fed by this government. They have proven, just as they've done so many times before, that they can't manage the economy. The circumstances in the economy were well and truly transparent, public and open, before the election. They knew what they were dealing with. It's all very well for them to now blame Peter Dutton, Scott Morrison or somebody else and to deflect the blame. It is one thing they're really good at: 'It's somebody else's fault, not ours. We didn't know'. But they made these promises. These are Labor's words coming back to haunt them. They made these promises: a lower cost of living, lower power prices and higher real wages. They made these promises and they continue to break them. Education costs are up 10-plus per cent.

It's all very well for the Prime Minister and the Treasurer to think that they know more than the Reserve Bank, as they did before the last budget saying, 'We know something that will bring inflation down.' They offer subsidies for energy to provide a faux inflation rate. They're just not honest with the Australian people, and the Australian people will judge them for that. (Time expired)