Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I inform the Senate at 8.30 am today, 35 proposals were received in accordance with standing order 35. The question of which proposal would be submitted to the Senate was determined by lot. As a result, I inform the Senate that the following letter has been received from Senator Fawcett:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:

The need for the Government to adopt immediate action to ease pressure on cost of living for Australian families and small businesses.

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today's debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

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

I rise to talk about this matter of public importance because, whilst the cost-of-living pressures can be traced back, in many cases, to international affairs—I think it's important to acknowledge that upfront—and many countries around the world are struggling with the crises—for example, in Ukraine—that are causing pressures, there are two important things that people should consider when they look at the response of a government. Part of it goes to how governments design their economy and the long-term frameworks they put in place. But the other question that people should ask is: what are governments doing in the short term to ease pressures in terms of cost of living?

The coalition, in its time in government, took a number of actions, and people have seen those: cost-of-living support for pensioners, veterans and others; easing things like the cost of fuel; and a number of measures particularly around employment and training. One of the clear indicators is that people who have a job, who have the skills, find it easier to cope with the pressures of cost of living. A lot of Australians, it has to be acknowledged, are doing it incredibly tough at the moment, particularly with the rising interest rates which are impacting on those who are seeking to purchase a home, but also those people who are in the rental market and struggling to afford rent and bills, whether they be food bills or other cost-of-living bills. The question we should ask is: what is the government actually doing?

The coalition government recognised that jobs are really important to help people. That's why, despite the rhetoric we've heard in this place over the last couple of days, which is all about rewriting history and trying to claim there's been a crisis, for example, in training and apprenticeships and work, it's really important to see that, as of last year, there were more apprentices in training in Australia than since 1963. I made this point yesterday in a brief contribution. The $6.4 billion that has been invested in skills and training is a record amount and has had real outcomes in terms of training. There were specific measures, for example, when employers were struggling with the concept of retaining apprentices in the face of rising costs and also the crisis that COVID brought about. When other nations were laying off apprentices, Australian apprenticeships grew. Why did they grow? Because the government took positive measures to put in place support for employers to the value of 10 per cent of an apprentice's wage in the first year and five per cent in the second year. It's meant that employers have been able to take on apprentices and keep them on, and we've seen completion rates increase. Those very tangible, real measures are responsive in real time to the pressures people are facing definitely help.

The other thing that I would like to highlight is that we took very positive measures to support industry, particularly the Modern Manufacturing Initiative, to bring back manufacturing here in Australia. We got co-investment from industry and investment in from the taxpayer in the areas of space, defence, critical minerals, medical products and advanced manufacturing so that employers had the confidence to invest in productive capacity, to invest in intellectual property and to invest in employing people, giving people the jobs which helped them to cope with the rising costs.

When we compare that approach to responding to a crisis to the approach of this government, the reason it's so important to look at what the government is doing or not doing is that on the jobs side they're planning a talk fest. We're not talking about supporting employers. We're not talking about supporting small businesses' need to move ahead, employ people or keep them on the books. The big-ticket item is a talk fest.

On the manufacturing front, I'm being approached by people in Adelaide from the defence and space sector who are concerned that the razor gang, the budget-cut gang, from the Albanese government has put modern manufacturing grants that were awarded by the coalition on hold, which puts in doubt these projects that have been the basis for companies to expand and look at giving people those jobs. So, as we look at the cost of living, we need this government to act now on things that will enable people to cope with the high cost of living, through having a job.

Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is amazing, an MPI—it's been said before but it's worth saying again—where we've had now two weeks of 'leading with your chin'. This is a government now in opposition that, when they were in power, turned around and saw the standard of living for hardworking Australians collapse. We saw, for the first time in the history of this country, the middle class shrink under these people. That's what happened. Working people, wages, declined under their watch. And, as they see quite clearly, that was part of their inherent strategy, on how they would move forward, in making sure the economy was more successful. But for who? For hardworking Australians? No, of course not.

Quite clearly, the cost-of-living crunch—we had nine years of the Liberal government that were the worst period for wages growth in Australia's history. When the Liberals left office, real wages were lower than they were when they entered office in 2013. And they want to stand here and give everyone else a lesson—a lesson about how to do it wrong. That's the consequence of what the opposition did when they were in government.

Just today, I heard from Toby Priest who was a casual academic at Flinders University and a member of the National Tertiary Education Union. Toby made headlines a few months ago when he was a test case for the previous government's failed casual conversion clause. Why do they want people to be casuals? Why don't they want them converted? Because that's how you keep wages suppressed. That's how you stop wages increasing.

Toby had worked at Flinders University for 16 years as a casual. Sixteen years! He wanted a conversion to a permanent part-time position. He said, 'There's constant uncertainty. I'm a father of three teenage kids and I work really hard and have pride in my job. I just want to be permanent.' But the university refused to give it to him. So he went to the Fair Work Commission. Here is what the Fair Work Commission ruled in May. I'll read from the media coverage at the time:

… the industrial umpire upheld the university's stance that higher pay and a professional pathway was too much to ask of his employer.

That's how weak the former government laws are, in an area and an industry where we need to have people encouraged—platforms and programs and arrangements to make sure that they're encouraged to work in these vital industries. You can keep people in insecure work for decades at a time because you don't want to pay them fairly, under the previous government. That's their program. That was their intention.

You wonder why we had record low wages under the former government. Toby called today and said that Flinders University has now reclassified its classes, with the effect that he will now only be paid two-thirds of what he earned before, for the exact same work, because that's the environment they encouraged under their watch. That was the opposition's plan for the future. That was the opposition's plan for the last nine years. And it hasn't changed. A third of his pay gone—just months after he was locked into casual work forever by the last government. That sums up the problem we have in this economy.

And I have a message for Flinders University: under Liberals, you're allowed to cut wages and keep people forever on casual contracts. In fact, the Liberals encouraged it, as we've seen. But this is a new government and we expect better from our universities. You are funded through federal funding, and we will be looking very closely at the way federally funded entities behave towards their workers. That's essential.

Let's move to another area of high exploitation under this former government's watch, where they did nothing—the gig economy. We know the Select Committee on Job Security heard that gig workers earned as little as $6.67 an hour—no workers comp, no sick leave, no annual leave and providing all their own tools of trade, with no compensation. Former Attorney-General, Christian Porter, said it was too complicated to provide those workers with minimum standards. Surprise, surprise, surprise! It was another recipe for driving wages down. But the real kicker was when former Senator Stoker went even further, saying, if people only earned $6.67 an hour, then that was okay because that's what they'd signed up for. Let's go back to the 1800s! Let's just take this whole thing and stop pretending, because that's what the previous government was trying to do under the gig economy.

Even Uber and DoorDash have said that we need minimum standards, signing agreements with the Transport Workers Union, supporting Labor policy. A food delivery worker, Esteban Salazar, told the job security inquiry:

I didn't have a minimum wage for an hour, which meant that, at the end of the day, I had earnt $15 after six hours of standing outside in the cold and the rain.

Let's look at some areas, feminised industries, like the care industry. Ninety per cent of aged-care workers are on casual or part-time contracts with little or no guaranteed hours. Worse still, gig platforms, like Mable, are infiltrating aged care and the NDIS, paying below the minimum award wage. The previous government turned around and funded Mable to have their exploitative model further enhanced through the NDIS and the aged-care system.

Just today I spoke to two aged-care workers with the United Workers Union who shared their stories about the horrid conditions of work they endure. Grace Gavley, a 24-year-old care worker, said to me: 'I get paid so little working in aged care that I also have to work in the retail sector. I earn more for working in retail than aged care, but what keeps me in aged care is my heart. That's all. It's demanding emotionally and pays less. It's also clear,' she went on to say, 'that management just doesn't care, and the aged-care system is broken. I don't know that this is sustainable for me. I get very emotional even talking about it.' Glenda Jenson, another aged-care worker, told me earlier today: 'Most people I know are stuck doing low minimum hour contracts but then they constantly work excessively long days, day after day after day to make up the shortfall in numbers. Because less and less people want to work in aged care, you end up having to perform a range of roles outside your main job of being a carer. It's all just piles up. It's too much.'

The experience of these workers in aged care, in higher education, in the gig economy, are examples of the problems faced by workers across the economy. Like Renee McBride, a TAFE nursing teacher I met with earlier today as well. She told me: 'I worked for 8½ years as a casual teacher. I won a scholarship'—this is a real clanger! 'I won a scholarship from the New South Wales Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, for the quality of my work, and yet I had all of my hours taken away from me when I finished my arrangements for that scholarship. We are in the sector,' she said, 'where 70 per cent of the workforce is casual. That means people can't get mortgages, can't get home loans. I've recently got permanent work, but now I have to spend hours each day driving to get to my job. I'm a single parent with two kids. It's exhausting.'

It's exhausting because the previous government allowed the culture of the bottom is the best, wages suppressed, casual jobs, no job security, can't get home loans, can't look after your family, can't look after yourself. It was all part of the model that they encouraged in this economy. One thing is very clear: we're going to make a change to that.

Now, in some areas money is rolling. And it's literally rolling in the casino in Canberra. Bryan Kidman said to me earlier today, 'I was disciplined for raising concerns about workers rights at the casino in a newspaper interview. I was speaking as a union delegate during a prospective sale of the casino, and I should not have been targeted the way I was. I went of the Human Rights Commission and the civil Administrative Appeals Tribunal, which found in my favour, but it was a terrible thing to go through.' He later told me that the company in the negotiations for an enterprise bargaining agreement— (Time expired)

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, we are indeed in a cost-of-living crisis in Australia, and it's worth pointing out that that crisis is making life much, much harder for an ever-increasing number of Australians. There are many reasons for this crisis. Inflation is certainly one of those reasons, and the Greens absolutely accept that some of the reasons we are seeing such a spike in inflation in Australia are international issues. But it is worth pointing out that one of the global reasons that we are seeing pressure come onto prices is climate change, and this Labor government is one of the most fossil fuel addicted governments in the world. They want to open up 114 new coal or gas developments in Australia, and the Greens will fight them all the way on every single one of those proposals.

But domestically, in terms of pressures on inflation, we cannot have this discussion without accepting the role that corporate profiteering is having on driving prices up in this country. And it's worth having everyone in this place understand that when you overlay climate change on top of 40-plus years of turbocharged neoliberalism in this country you are starting to see our very social fabric being torn. The social contract that keeps us, in the main, as a peaceful and coherent society is starting to crack. If you can't feel it cracking under your feet now, colleagues, then I can only say, you are not paying enough attention, because that social contract is starting to crack. Unless we actually take action on things like the breakdown of our climate, unless we take action on things like the sixth mass extinction event in the history of our planet, unless we start to reverse the turbocharged neoliberalism in this country—where people who are deliberately left without work in an attempt to suppress wages are forced into poverty and starvation, in some cases—the social fabric will continue to crumble.

There used to be an understanding in this country that if you worked hard and got yourself a good education and a reasonable job you could prosper, get ahead and make a good life for yourself and your family. Through collective bargaining and through industrial action, workers demanded and won better pay and conditions. Governments built public housing and provided a roof over the heads of people who could not afford homes of their own. But that understanding, that social contract, between the people and the government is being taken apart piece by piece by the neoliberal parties in this place.

For young people in particular, hard work matters far, far less than the wealth of their parents. And we are seeing the new class division in this country. That class division is whether or not you own property. If you own property, you're doing very nicely, thank you very much, and you have been for decades. If you don't own property, or your parents don't own enough property to bequeath to you at some stage in your life, you are condemned. That's the new class divide in this country. We've got wages flatlining. The Treasurer was up in the House just last week telling Australians to brace for their real wages to fall. The cost of renting is skyrocketing; the cost of buying a new home is skyrocketing.

This is a rigged game, and it's rigged in favour of the super wealthy, the billionaires and those who profit from the big corporations. What governments have done is design a system where the only hope of social advancement is through property investment, and now that ladder is being pulled away as well by rampant interest rate rises from a RBA governor who told people that rates wouldn't rise until 2024. Those people who believed him and bought a home are getting smashed because they believed the RBA governor.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to make a contribution on the MPI today:

The need for the Government to adopt immediate action to ease pressure on cost of living for Australian families and small businesses.

It is a little ironic that if you google the Australian Labor Party's website the first three words you will see as it pops up on the screen are, 'A better future'. If you then explore it a little further, this is what it says:

Anthony Albanese and Labor have a plan for a better future.

Australians deserve a leader who is not afraid to roll up their sleeves and do the hard work needed to get things done.

The Albanese Government is focused on tackling the spiralling cost of living that is making life tough for too many Australians.

Then you click on the Powering Australia policy. Despite the fact that one of their first actions as a government was to completely backtrack on a commitment they took to the election, which was that Labor:

… will cut power bills for families and businesses by $275 a year for homes by 2025, compared to today.

that is actually still on the Australian Labor Party's website. It's a little strange because what they state is they are focused on tackling the spiralling cost of living that is making life tough for far too many Australians. You have an admission by the Labor government that there is a spiralling cost of living. You have an admission by the Labor government that that is making life tough for Australians. But then you have a failure to back these admissions in with any sort of plan.

What we saw yesterday just adds to the increasing cost-of-living pressures that Australian families and small businesses are now facing. Without a doubt it was a tough day yesterday for the around 3.5 million families that have a mortgage. Today we saw the Minister representing the Treasurer, when asked how much more the average family would pay on the average mortgage, be quite dismissive: 'A couple of hundred bucks.' A couple of hundred bucks means a lot for families across Australia. A couple of hundred bucks means a lot for small businesses out there, in particular when that figure is not just a couple of hundred bucks; it's a couple of hundred bucks month after month after month. In fact Australians with an average mortgage of $610,000 will soon pay over $500 more per month on their repayments than they were in May.

When you look at what the Australian Labor Party under Anthony Albanese says—they have a plan for a better future, they acknowledge there is a spiralling cost of living, they acknowledge this spiralling cost of living is making life tough for Australians—you would think that when asked a question in the Australian parliament they would be able to clearly articulate what their plan is to tackle the spiralling cost of living. Yet there isn't one. The government has no plan. Despite being in opposition for nine years, they come into government and have no plan to address the cost-of-living pressures. That should disappoint all Australians.

All Australians who have a mortgage are going to be paying more. See the interviews that were conducted with Australians in the streets today: some of them are actually saying, 'I now have to choose whether I spend money on food so I can eat or whether I pay my mortgage.' And what do the Australian Labor Party say? In the first instance, they blame the former government. Well, the bad news is they are now in office. Then they walk away from their election commitment to cut power bills by $275 compared to what they were when they came into office. People actually listened to that promise. They listened to it, and they said, 'I actually like it and I'm going to vote for it,' and Labor have already broken that promise to the Australian people.

They also have no plan, as I've said, to address the immediate cost-of-living pressures. One of the ways that you could address the immediate cost-of-living pressures has been put forward by the opposition leader, Peter Dutton. He's been very upfront: if Mr Albanese and Labor wanted to adopt this plan, we would actually welcome that. That is, of course, our policy so that older Australians can keep more of what they earn. You have a government that says, 'We are focused on tackling the spiralling cost-of-living pressures that are making life tough for Australians.' You have a government that does not have a plan, but you have an opposition leader in Peter Dutton who, within but a few weeks of being the opposition leader, releases a policy that will actually help older Australians keep more of what they earn, and he says to the Labor government: 'We would welcome it if you adopted this policy.' Why? Because it's a sensible policy. It's been welcomed by stakeholders, in particular those stakeholders—small businesses—who are facing a battle to get more people to work at the moment with the skills shortage.

The change itself, of course, would make it more worthwhile for older Australians to pick up an extra shift or work extra hours. It is a plan that would help small businesses and regional businesses deal with labour shortages. We know, in particular, in certain industries employers in small businesses—in fact, in all businesses, but in particular in small businesses—cannot find staff. If Mr Albanese and Labor were to adopt the policy put forward by opposition leader Peter Dutton, this would ensure that thousands of jobs across hospitality, agriculture, tourism and the retail market remained open. As I've said, Peter Dutton, the opposition leader, has been very, very upfront. He is more than happy for Mr Albanese to adopt this problem, because we actually want Labor to have a plan.

They have a recognition that there are these spiralling cost-of-living pressures. They have a recognition that Australians are doing it tough. We saw only yesterday the increase in the interest rates. As I said, with the average mortgage of $610,000, that means the average family, month after month, is now going to be paying $500 more. Then we have a policy that they could adopt that would actually go directly to ensuring that they did have a plan, or at least part of a plan, that would address the spiralling cost of living and that would address in particular what is making life tough at the moment for so many Australians. This is a well-targeted policy. It is a well-targeted policy that is designed to increase labour supply. It is designed to ease workplace shortages—we all know there are workplace shortages—but also to put downward pressure on inflation and interest rates.

What have we heard from the Labor government so far? Absolutely nothing. What we do have before us, though, is a government that told Australians that, by voting for it, they'd get a better future. It tells Australians that it acknowledges there's a spiralling cost-of-living issue. It tells Australians: 'We know that you're doing it tough.' But then, when those opposite are questioned on what they are going to do now—

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Substance.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What is the substance of your plan? Today we saw Minister Gallagher stand up, hold up a few bits of paper and say, 'Here is our plan.' As I said, that is a great shame for the Australian people, who actually are doing it tough.

Jana Stewart (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

WART () (): I rise to speak on the matter of public importance in relation to the cost of living for Australian families and small business, and I'm delighted to do so. I'm proud to be standing with my Labor colleagues, who are being honest with the Australian people about the economic and cost-of-living challenges we are facing as a nation. I'm also proud to be standing up as part of the Albanese Labor government, which has a real plan, an economic plan that recognises these issues, many of which were totally ignored, sugar-coated, swept under the carpet or neglected during the wasted nine years of the previous coalition government.

Nine years of mess cannot be cleaned up in nine weeks. It will take time. Australians know this, but it appears that the opposition do not. In very stark contrast to the former government, we have committed to building a fairer economy and a better future for all Australians. But as we embark on this important work, we must start by being honest, open and transparent with the Australian people about our current economic circumstances—unlike the former Liberal government. This doesn't happen by hiding reports and cupboards or changing regulations until after an election. It starts with transparency and integrity.

As outlined by the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, on 28 July through his ministerial statement on the economy, Australians know their government has changed hands at a time of instability, uncertainty and volatility around the world and at home. However, Australians also know that the former government's approach has already given our country a wasted decade of missed opportunities and messed up priorities, and everyday Australians are picking up the bill. Australians are already paying too much for that in the form of high and rising inflation, falling real wages and $1 trillion of debt that will take generations to pay off without a generational dividend to accompany it. While Australia continues to outperform much of the world, we know that this doesn't make it any easier for families to pay the bills at home, but whether it be in relation to inflation or real wages, the Albanese Labor government's economic plan will respond to the growing pressures left by our predecessors on the economy.

We acknowledge the impact that high inflation is having on people's living standards. Families see this every day, whether it be at the supermarket, in pay packets, through interest rates or when the electricity bill arrives. In an environment where for many years workers have not been getting wage rises sufficient to match price rises, the Albanese Labor government is proud to stand with workers to secure better wages. In contrast, what did the coalition do in office during their wasted nine years when it came to prudent spending and financial management to help keep inflation contained? What did they do to help? The fact is that the previous government have a lot to answer for when it comes to inflation. The coalition left us with a legacy of $1 trillion in debt with literally nothing to show for it. The coalition wasted over $2 billion of taxpayer funding on French submarines that will never be built, let alone delivered. The coalition treats the Australian people with such contempt that I think that if it had actually got back in to government it would have told them that they were the super high-tech invisible kind of submarines that we could expect to have delivered to our shores. The coalition allocated $660 million towards their car park rorts program, with numerous projects revealed to have been announced via press release, not assessed and undercosted, with many projects subsequently shelved. The coalition spent almost $30 million on a piece of land for the new Western Sydney airport which was estimated to have been valued at only $3 million. We have seen tens of millions of dollars on blatant pork-barrelling through sports rorts, regional rorts and grant programs, all guided by colour coded spreadsheets. So, when the coalition talk about the cost of living, inflation and financial management, they do so with a record that is tainted by mismanagement and has no credibility, and with a record that actually fuelled inflation. The coalition should be ashamed that they were a government that spent more, borrowed more and delivered less than any other government in Australia's history. In very stark contrast, Labor's economic plan will provide for a deliberate and direct response to the growing pressures left for us in the economy.

When it comes to the cost of living, we must also talk about real wages. When it comes to real wages, I'm proud to be part of an Albanese Labor government that supports workers to secure fair pay rises. Just today my office was proud to welcome a delegation from the ACTU consisting of workers who are grateful and thankful for Labor's position on supporting real wage growth. Just last week, I was proud to have met with a delegation from the Transport Workers Union in their efforts to get safe rates across the transport industry. On this side of the chamber, we don't just talk about it; we take action.

Many of you may recall the pre-election commitment made by Anthony Albanese who committed to our government making a submission to the Fair Work Commission to support a rise in the minimum wage. I'm sure it sticks in everyone's mind because everyone can remember the dollar coin that he held up at almost every press conference. It was an announcement that was met with absolute opposition and outrage by the Liberals, who have never stood on the side of the working people and never will. Yet they have the gall to move an MPI in this chamber calling on the Labor government to take immediate action to ease the cost of living, while at the same time they oppose, and continue to oppose, every effort to raise wages for real working people. This is particularly the case for the transport sector. Rather than stand with the transport workers to maintain good wages, conditions and road safety measures, the Liberal-National coalition government, in 2016, chose to dismantle the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal—the very measure designed to keep our roads safe and workers paid fairly. Shame!

The hypocrisy of those opposite is a disgrace. Every time they're in government, they attack workers. Whether it be Work Choices under John Howard, abandoning our proud Victorian automotive manufacturing sector under Tony Abbott or excluding dnata transport workers from JobKeeper, workers are always under attack by the Liberals. When it comes to real wages, the former coalition government also did nothing to help workers secure fair pay rises. Under the coalition government, real wages growth over the past decade has averaged just 0.1 per cent. Under the last 12 months of the Morrison government, real wages went substantially backwards. Any grade prep can tell you that, when you've got the cost of living rising by 3.5 per cent in 2021 and wages rising by just 2.3 per cent, that's a pay cut. Good, secure work should pay the bills, but, for too many, it's simply not the reality. There are 1.7 million Australians either unemployed or looking for more hours. Real wage growth relies on moderating inflation and getting wages moving again. Based on current forecasts, real wages are expected to start growing again in 2023-24. There is a key difference now. Australian workers now have a Labor government with an economic plan to boost wages, not to deliberately undermine them.

Another issue Labor is serious about tackling, which the Liberals did nothing about, is the gender pay gap for women. Our country has a gender pay gap that sits at 13.8 per cent. For First Nations women, when you compare that with non-Aboriginal men, it sits at 37.2 per cent. This government—the Albanese Labor government—will lead a national push to help close the gender pay gap and increase the pay for women workers, particularly those in caring jobs, by strengthening the capacity of the Fair Work Commission to order pay increases for workers in low-paid female-dominated industries; legislating so large companies will have to report their gender pay gap publicly; prohibiting pay secrecy clauses and giving employees the right to disclose their pay, if they want to; and taking action to address the gender pay gap in the Australian Public Service.

Labor's economic plan is a deliberate and direct response to the growing pressures left for us in the economy, beginning with budget repair for the trillion dollars for debt so waste and mismanagement doesn't grow bigger and bigger for future generations. The PM says we've got two ears and one mouth for a reason, so maybe those opposite should listen a little bit more when I say we are going to strengthen Medicare and create secure jobs. We are going to make child care cheaper. We're going to make more things in Australia. That's how you ease the cost-of-living pressures for Australian workers. They have done nothing but kick Australian workers when those workers are on their knees. We're a government that's going to— (Time expired)

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I speak to this matter of public importance—and it is a crucial and real matter of public importance. Well may a former assistant minister in the previous government debate the cost of living. This cost-of-living crisis now facing everyday Australian families and small businesses rests on the shoulders of both sides of this chamber. For more than two years, the Liberal and National government and the then Labor Party opposition were on a unity ticket to conjure money through electronic ledger entries and spend for short-term electoral benefit. They conjured up $500 billion and spent it on recurring government expenditure. These turned out to be handouts to Liberal, Labor and National party sponsors. Much of it went into corporate profits, not job support. Now we have runaway inflation. Who pays for the government's mistakes, the Labor Party's mistakes? The people, as always.

Let me be clear. It's possible to conjure up money through electronic journal entries and not create inflation. It's been done for centuries. In these cases, the spending must be on something that will grow the economy, grow our productive capacity and absorb the extra money—something like infrastructure. It's impossible to get the tired old parties or the new climate mafia to talk about important infrastructure projects like the Bradfield Scheme, Copper String 2.0, Tully-Millstream hydro, Big Buffalo dam, the national rail circuit and the boomerang steel project, amongst other One Nation priorities. Meanwhile, the climate mafia are setting out to destroy our standard of living through many ill-conceived policies not based on science, contradicting the evidence.

Let me start with high electricity prices. Electricity prices are an input to business costs right through the production cycle, from the farmer running a cold room to the manufacturer running a factory to the wholesaler running a warehouse to supermarkets trying to keep their fridges cold and their lights on. When the cost of electricity rises, the cost of everything rises. Food, clothing, hardware, consumer goods, services, energy, and service sector examples such as optometrists, hairdressers, solicitors—pick a service, any service. All have electricity as a business expense. The cost of living is going up because the price of electricity is going up. Australian wholesale electricity prices are up 300 per cent in the last year. And what is the reason? It is unsustainable, unreliable wind and solar paying subsidies to billionaires in the Chinese Communist Party who are running these things. They're the owners. The majority of large wind and solar complexes are owned by foreigners, including China and the Chinese Communist Party. Those who laugh are ignorant and condemned to suffer more.

This is combined with manipulation of the energy market by unscrupulous energy companies that should never have been allowed to buy important infrastructure. The National Electricity Market is actually a national electricity racket run by bureaucrats; it's not a market at all.

The third element of higher electricity prices is the cost of transmission lines, poles and wires, to bring power from where the industrial solar and wind blight complexes are located to where the electricity is needed.

Our immigration rate affects prices. The more new Australians arrive, the more electricity, water, medical care and education they consume. These things are supply and demand. The more demand, the higher the price. Of course, governments can plan ahead and build out extra power generation, extra hospitals, extra dams and schools, but we don't. Long-term planning in Australian politics means the next election, or nowadays, in the last decade or so, it means the next budget. This is no way to run a country. When One Nation talks about reducing immigration to net zero, we mean bringing in around 100,000 new arrivals each year to balance out the 100,000 who leave. Net zero is zero total immigration, easing the strain on infrastructure. This takes pressure off our economy, reducing demand and inflation, and making the essentials of life cheaper.

The climate mafia do not want to allow new dams and new electricity generation to be built, while at the same time wanting to bring in half the world as immigrants. Talk about inflation! You haven't anything yet. Agriculture is under threat. A 43 per cent carbon dioxide reduction means culling livestock and shutting down cropping, returning that land to nature in a process called rewilding. What they call rewilding One Nation calls 'starving people'. The less food that gets grown, the higher the price will be. One Nation will stop the madness and return Australia to good government. We are one community, we are one nation.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is the most pressing and important issue facing the country today. When I travelled around during the election and since, the most important issue facing Australians is the crushing increases in living costs that have occurred over the past year. We've obviously seen, this week, interest rates going up further. That is making it very tough for those homeowners seeking to pay back their mortgages. And we've seen electricity prices go through the roof in the last few months, although most of that hasn't yet flowed through to people's power bills. That will hit their fridge magnets later this year.

It is very tough for Australians. We've seen stories of people having to bring charcoal barbecues into their houses to heat their homes and ending up in hospital from carbon monoxide poisoning. I've heard stories of families living in their cars because they can't afford the rent. There has to be action here to bring down the nation's living costs. When the Albanese government was elected, I and all of us in Australia—I'm sure those Australians who voted for them—thought they had a plan to bring down the costs of living.

They were loudly and proudly saying: 'I'm going to bring down your electricity bills. I'm going to help you with your living costs.' Anthony Albanese, the now Prime Minister, said many times on the election trail that he was going to slash people's power bills by $275 a year. Indeed, there was a bit of scepticism on whether he would be able to deliver that. It was such a very bold and very precise promise, $275 a year. He was very confident about it. The media did question him on it. They asked, 'How do you know that?' He said, 'I don't think I'm going to deliver it; I know I'm going to deliver it.' He said that. He proudly put that on his Facebook page. You can go back and have a look on Anthony Albanese's Facebook page. He put up a post saying, 'I know that I'm going to save all Australians $275 a year off their electricity bills.' Well, we learnt just weeks after the election that the Labor Party had dumped that promise, and they won't repeat it ever again. They're not mentioning that figure. There is no mention of $275. In the Governor-General's address last week, instead of $275, the Labor Party made the Governor-General say that it will save families hundreds of dollars a year, a very vague, non-committal type promise which belies what they actually told the Australian people to get elected. As I said, that was the most important issue for people.

It's very tough right now for families on fixed incomes. They thought they were electing a government, a party, the Labor Party, to help them deal with these issues, but all they've got since is blame and distraction. It would be much better if the newly elected government came up with a plan to help people's living costs, came up with a clear idea about what they want to do, but we have seen through question time in these first two weeks that all they have done is sought to tarnish those who came before them. They have sought to blame everything that's going on in this country on a government that's no longer in power. That is their only plan, their only response, seemingly.

To be fair, there has been the odd mention of child care. We are apparently going to see legislation to help people with childcare expenses later this year. What the Labor Party don't say is that those childcare benefits, which they're apparently bringing forward in the coming months, are massively skewed to high-income earners. Indeed, modelling from the Department of Education showed that for two families, one on $360,000 a year and the other on $70,000 a year, the family on $70,000 a year would have be 85 per cent fewer benefits than the family on $360,000 a year. The Australians listening to this would be gobsmacked that they have elected a so-called Labor Party that is providing massively more benefits to a family on $360,000 a year. Good luck to the family on $360,000, but I don't think they need taxpayers' money to help them bring up their children. The family on $70,000 deserve it, but they're not getting much from the Labor Party. They're hardly getting anything.

The modern Labor Party has become the party of the rich, the elite, the well educated and the well connected, not those of the working classes, who are suffering in this country right now. They deserve to have a voice in this place. They deserve to live in a country that's blessed with energy resources and have cheap energy. Why can't we give people cheap energy in this country? We've got coal, we've got gas and we've got uranium. The other day, when the Treasurer was pushed on this, he blamed Vladimir Putin. He said your energy bills are going up because of Vladimir Putin. Hang on—in a country that has the best black coal in the world, is the largest liquefied-natural-gas exporter in the world and has the largest uranium reserves in the world, how come Vladimir Putin stops us from getting cheap energy? I don't think it's Vladimir Putin that's stopping coal and gas companies from getting ahead. I don't think it's Vladimir Putin that's putting forward radical climate legislation in this place that's going to push up people's power bills.

It's about time this government gets back to basics and helps people with their budgets and their cost of living rather than focusing on these trinkets, which will do nothing to help out average Australians.

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to make a contribution to this MPI on cost-of-living pressures. In my home state of Western Australia the rising cost of living is a huge issue. People are struggling every day with the costs of groceries, fuel, bills, rent and housing. Inflation in WA is the highest in the country— regardless of the $5 billion surplus that we got in our last budget—with Perth topping the capital cities at 7.4 per cent. Fresh, healthy food is more expensive than ever. The latest ABS living-cost indexes show that the cost of fruit and vegetables is increasing the most, and we all know the story about the lettuce.

It's clear that we are facing cost-of-living and wages crises, and WA families have never done it so tough. We know that rising rents and house stress are pushing households to the brink. Rents have increased by 9.1 per cent in WA in just the last 12 months—9.1 per cent, in a 12-month period. So if you are on income support, like JobSeeker or DSP, the disability support pension, the rent is completely unaffordable. Anglicare's Rental Affordability Snapshot for 2022 found that less than one per cent of available properties are affordable for people on income support payments. These rents continue to skyrocket alongside interest rates, which are squeezing people into housing insecurity and homelessness while we're putting homeownership continually out of reach of young people.

We need real solutions and we need them now. If the government want to address the cost-of-living pressures, there are two things that they can do in the October budget, because we, on this side of the chamber, here in the Greens, are solution focused. Firstly the government could make child care free. The government's promise to reduce childcare costs in July next year is simply too far away. Families need cost-of-living relief today, not in 2023. Secondly, the government could put dental into Medicare, and that would deliver real cost-of-living relief to everybody. Getting dental into Medicare and making child care free could save a family of four up to $7,000 per year. This would deliver real and immediate cost-of-living relief. These would be long-lasting changes that would absolutely deliver real relief to everyday people who are battling with high inflation and lower wages and incomes—better than the short-lived fuel excise cut, from the now opposition, that could be wiped out by the profiteering petrol corporations. These measures would mean that people are better off not just right now, not just next month but next year and the year after that.

It's time for us to look for bold solutions to these cost-of-living crises. When I was re-elected to this chamber, I assured the people of Western Australia that I would stand up for them here in Canberra. Why can't we axe the stage 3 tax cuts, which will deliver nothing for working families and those on minimum wages, who are absolutely struggling to make ends meet? Why can't we introduce a superprofits tax that will tackle inflation and cost-of-living pressures? The oil and gas companies of this place are making record profits; 96 per cent of the gas industry is foreign owned. These corporations don't even pay royalties for the gas that they produce and export, so they're getting their produce for free. I don't know any business in this country that gets their produce for free and sells it on and makes a profit from it. But these gas companies do, all the while wrecking the planet.

These are the solutions that are going to relieve the cost-of-living crisis, and we need a government that are going to be bold enough to put this vision into practice.

Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Times right now are bloody tough. The cost-of-living pressures are unprecedented, inflation is soaring at a rate we have not experienced in decades, and wages are stagnant and unliveable. Health care, education, housing, fuel and basic groceries are all increasingly out of reach for so many in our community. People of my generation have seen opportunities get scarcer and scarcer, life getting harder, and our entire worth determined by how much we can contribute to a capitalist system that does not work for us. And we are now watching in real time as things get worse while people get richer than us and sit back in their mortgage-free houses chastising us for eating avo on toast.

During the election campaign and for my entire time in this place I've heard from so many people in WA who feel increasingly despondent, particularly young people, about what lies ahead of us. The decisions that are made in this place are setting young people up to fail. Young people are paying higher rent on average than ever before. And that is if they can even secure a rental in a ridiculously competitive market with fewer and fewer options for low-income earners every year. Many young people are staying in their family homes for much longer than we would like. Where this is not an option, young people are either relying on cramped, overpriced housing, wondering whether there will be a place for them in six months time with a roof over their head or worrying whether their vindictive landlord will soon kick them out.

Young people are experiencing negative mental health impacts at higher rates than ever before and at higher rates than any other age demographic. When we seek health support, we are so often confronted with a system that doesn't have the capacity to see us in a timely manner or simply costs too much. Young people are being forced to boycott or cut their studies short, because constant fee hikes are creating huge HECS debts that loom over their heads for decades. For most young people living in Australia right now, it is hard not to feel like we are being stretched in every direction.

Where we should have a solution to all of these issues from this government, unfortunately we have a bit of a howling void. However, the Greens have a vision and a plan. Young people have shared with us clearly that they support our vision and plan to create university and TAFE free for all. They want to see higher education funded properly so that it is once again a place that is fun, sets us up for our future and does not saddle us with insurmountable debt.

We have a vision and a plan to solve the mental health crisis and the crisis in healthcare services that exist in our community by bringing mental health fully into the Medicare system, and do this at the same time as we expand free dental coverage to every Australian everywhere in the country. At the same time we are proposing that one million affordable homes are built throughout our community and that rents are capped at affordable rates so that people know that they will be able to afford to keep a roof over their heads for themselves and their family members. These solutions are unashamedly bold and, at the same time, devilishly simple.

When I've knocked on doors, when I've talked to people at unis and TAFEs and in high schools about our vision and plans, they have enthusiastically endorsed them, urged us to come to this place to make change, and asked why the major parties are not on board. Well, we have seen in these first two weeks the commitment to corporate power from the other side, a power we will continue to challenge in this place.

Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for the discussion has expired.