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

I inform the Senate that, at 8.30 am today, 33 proposals were received in accordance with standing order 75. The question of which proposal would be submitted to the Senate was determined by lot. As a result, I inform the Senate that the letter from Senator McGrath proposing a matter of public importance was chosen:

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

The failure of the Albanese Government to have a plan that addresses the rising cost of living facing all Australians.

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 discussion. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the failure of the Albanese government to have a plan that addresses the rising cost of living facing all Australians. It is indeed a matter of great public importance. Before the election, the members of the government were talking a very big game around the cost of living. In fact, the then Leader of the Opposition was unequivocal. He said this very straightforwardly: 'I'll say this very clearly. They will be better off under a Labor government.' That was backed in by the then shadow Treasurer, who was equally clear. He said that under Labor you will have a government which cares about the cost of living and has a plan to deal with it. But it has been more than three months since the election, and it's patently clear that Labor has done what Labor always does, and that is break its promises.

In fact, Australians are no better off now compared to the time before the election. The cost of living continues to skyrocket, and Labor still hasn't shown any plan to address it. Power prices are higher. Grocery bills are higher. Fuel is about to go up again in price. Today the RBA has once again raised interest rates. We feel it at the bowser, we feel it the grocery check-out, and we are certainly feeling it when we pay our mortgages. That suits the Assistant Treasurer just fine because the Assistant Treasurer is out there predicting hyperinflation and more strikes and further industrial action.

This is not what Australians need right now. It's certainly not what this government promised. They need a government with a plan to get the cost of living down, to drive down prices, but Labor keeps breaking its promise on the cost of living. The most resonating central tenet of Labor's election platform was to reduce power prices by $275. They said it over and over again. The Leader of the Opposition at the time said it, the shadow Treasurer at the time said it, they got into government, and now nothing. In fact, they repeated in the election campaign 96 times that they would reduce power prices by $275. Suddenly, once they were elected, everything changed. They went dead silent. You could hear nothing but crickets. Not only are power prices not going down by $275 but the Prime Minister, Mr Albanese, has not even fronted up, not once, and given an explanation to the Australian people as to why this promise, this fundamental tenet of the election campaign, this commitment to the Australian people, has been broken within the first 100 days of government.

Just today, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy popped his head up above the parapet, like a meerkat, and said that he stands by the modelling, but he still won't say that power prices will go down, having said 96 times during the election campaign that power prices will go down by $275. Now the Minister for Climate Change and Energy says nothing. He says he stands by the modelling, but he won't stand by the fact that power prices should, would and must go down by $275 to fulfil the commitment that Labor made to the Australian people. In fact, Mr Bowen, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, is using weasel words to get out of this fundamental promise.

But power prices are not the only promise that this government have already broken. In fact, they've also broken their election promise on wages. The Treasurer, Mr Chalmers, said it best when, before the election, as shadow Treasurer, he said, 'Our job is to get wages growing in a sustainable way, then get them growing strongly.' The now Treasurer said he could get this job done; he was the man to get this job done. He also said before the election: 'There are meaningful things that we can do about wages. We, Labor, have got a role to play in wages.' The Minister for Finance, Minister Gallagher, said that wages need to keep up with the cost of living. That was before the election.

Since the election, they've changed their tune. The Treasurer now admits that there is no credible economic forecaster who thinks that wages growth is going to keep up with inflation, although I guess that's something the Assistant Treasurer is happy to back him in on. In fact, the Labor Party went to the election promising to increase wages, but the fact is that increased wages have not kept up with the cost of living. We know that Labor has already broken promises to reduce the cost of living, to reduce the cost of power and to improve wages.

These broken promises affect everyday Australians, who are doing it tough with these increased costs of living. I've been out in the community, as have my colleagues, talking to business owners, talking to individuals, talking to families and talking to employees to understand just how Labor's broken promises on the cost of living are impacting ordinary Australians. Some businesses are planning, and indeed expecting, an economic downturn, and they're preparing to lay off staff right now. The cost of key supplies for some businesses has increased by as much as 30 per cent in a week. One business told me that they are planning for people to have less expendable income as inflation increases, so therefore they will sell fewer goods. Another business told me that they are absorbing some of the fixed costs because they're concerned that consumers will stop spending rather than wear those price increases.

Businesses are looking how to best manage their finances so they can absorb those increased power bills and grocery costs just so that they can keep staff on. One Sydney restaurant was reported in the newspaper of offering a $5,000 sign-on bonus just to get new team members for dishwashers and managers. Another Melbourne restaurant has resorted to recruiting staff from Dubai, and covering the costs of their visas and processing fees, at about $8,000 each.

The cost of living is causing real concern to Australian people. In fact, this week Suicide Prevention Australia reported that 40 per cent of Australians say that money issues have caused them more distress in the last year, with experts warning that it is the biggest risk to suicide rates. Suicide Prevention Australia referenced expected Reserve Bank rate rises, saying this is an economic issue that has overtaken social issues in levels of distress.

It's clear that Labor's broken promises on the cost of living are impacting all Australians, but we also have to remember that the Labor Party is the party of higher taxes; it always has been and always will be. There is a suite of new taxes on its way that the government's allies in the union movement have already proposed that will simply take more money out of your pockets: new taxes on workers, new taxes on businesses, new taxes on dividends and a retiree tax 2.0 proposed by the ACTU as part of this Jobs and Skills Summit.

The Prime Minister made it clear that he does not support the third stage of the coalition's personal income tax plan. In fact, when stage 3 is implemented in 2024-25, around 95 per cent of taxpayers will face a marginal tax rate of 30 per cent or less. But that doesn't matter to the Treasurer, who said: 'We're not big fans of the stage 3 tax cuts. We would think that they are the least affordable and least responsible,' yet they would put more money into people's pockets. Just last week the Prime Minister said that Labor actually tried to amend out the stage 3 tax cuts, but they weren't successful.

Here's the deal. We know that Labor did not cause the war in Ukraine, which has fed into high energy prices. We know that they didn't cause COVID, which induced the supply chain problems that we're seeing right around the world. The things that cause inflation are not of Labor's making. However, they are this government's problem. The Australian people look to their government to help them through a crisis.

The previous government's challenge was COVID, and our response to that crisis resulted in the best health and economic outcomes any country in the world achieved. This Labor government has faltered at its first hurdle, its first challenge. There will be more challenges that it needs to face. It's already broken promises. So far, you have stumbled. This is an opportunity now to recommit to helping ordinary Australians with the cost of living; recommit to that $275 cut in power prices that you repeated 96 times throughout the election campaign; recommit to tax cuts for ordinary Australians so that they can keep more of their own money in their own pockets; and recommit to helping ordinary Australians with the cost of living, which is their No. 1 issue right now in any survey.

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

There's a saying that you lead with your chin. On this occasion with the MPI not only have the opposition led with their chin; they've led with their head, their shoulders, the upper part of their body—the only thing they haven't led with is the toes on the ends of their feet. This is a prime example of people who have no idea of the pressures of cost of living and the stresses on people right across our community.

They said it quite clearly when they talked about the cost of living, when it was put down all that time ago, when the whole decision, the cultural change, was brought about by the opposition when they were in government. It was clearly spelt out by Mathias Cormann when he, as the Liberal finance minister, let the big one slip, when he said, 'Low wages growth is a deliberate design feature of our economic architecture.' That will live in infamy for years to come.

This government is clear about making sure that the mistakes the conservatives made whilst in government aren't continued. It's clear that we've made a decision that what Mr Cormann said quite loud was not loud enough. I think he needed to go one step further. He needed to say, 'We have a design feature of wage decline in this country.' Those people opposite were the first ones in the history of this country to actually wind back the middle class in this country, under their watch, their policies and their strategy.

Mathias Cormann went further than he could have even imagined to go to turn around and destroy wages, conditions and rights within this country. Wage cuts are a deliberate design feature of the coalition's economic architecture. It's funny: I don't remember seeing the phrases 'low wages growth' or 'wages cuts' on any Liberal Party election material, but that's exactly what they did, and those are exactly the policies they followed.

Now that the coalition are in opposition, they're acting constructively to deal with the low-wages crisis they created—heaven forbid! You'll be surprised to learn that they aren't—are they? No, of course they aren't. We had a summit with government, employers, unions and civil society last week to work on solutions to these issues. The only people who refused to show up were the Liberal Party. Poor old Angus Taylor was doing the media rounds demanding that he receive an invite, only for the Leader of the Opposition to tell him he wasn't allowed to go.

Last week was a great step forward on a real solution to the Liberal wages crisis. We saw agreements between the ACTU and COSBOA, even though the Liberals are threatening to have COSBOA's blood because they turned around and had the audacity to reach an agreement across the aisle, across the community and across business which is in the interest of all Australians. They just want to have the war and the fight because their deliberate strategy is to decrease wages, not only to keep them low.

We had agreements between the ACTU and the BCA. We had agreements between the unions and the National Farmers Federation. These are all things that couldn't be achieved by those on the opposite benches when they were in government. There were so many agreements at the summit, but the Liberals couldn't even agree on whether the shadow Treasurer would be allowed to attend. You don't think, when the government, good employers and workers come to consensus agreements that the opposition should get onboard? But that's what they think; they don't think we should be getting onboard. They think we should be tearing those agreements up.

We worked to make sure we had government, employers and unions coming together for the betterment of this country. That's the sort of Australia people want to see: consensus building, changes that mean that their real wages increase. There are no policies on the opposite side for that to happen. In fact, they have policies to make sure it doesn't happen, and they've stayed on the exact same program.

We've seen the attacks on the small business council. We've seen the Nationals attacking the National Farmers' Federation. It makes you wonder exactly who the coalition represent these days. They don't represent employers, who want to do the right thing; that's for sure. Good employers are coming to the table with the government and with unions and the community to work out solutions, because they know we need to see wages moving in the right direction again. They know that after a decade of Liberal wage cuts we need wages growth to kickstart our economy. They know that to get wages moving we need to fix our bargaining system, that we need to remove the barriers to enterprise and multi-employer bargaining.

But the Liberals don't represent the interests of good employers. Their new constituency is dodgy employers like Qantas, like Alan Joyce, who only know how to operate by ripping off their workers. Qantas is a textbook case for why single enterprise bargaining is not fit for purpose. Alan Joyce's enduring legacy will be that he proved that our enterprise bargaining system is broken and can be fixed only through multi-employer bargaining. He figured out that if you don't want to pay your workers the agreed-upon rates in your enterprise agreement then you can just outsource the work or, better yet, set up your own shell company to turn around and undercut your existing staff. Of course, Qantas has punted most of their workforce off enterprise agreements and on to agreements with creatively named shell companies, such as QF Cabin Crew Australia and Qantas Ground Services.

These shell companies exist only to undercut the agreements Qantas supposedly negotiated in good faith with their workforce. On one route you can now have five flight attendants who are employed by five different entities, each one on a worse deal than the last. One of the few cohorts still mostly employed directly by Qantas is their pilots. But just this year Qantas threatened their short-haul pilots with outsourcing if they didn't accept a multiyear wage freeze. And Qantas has the cheek to say:

We never said that a no vote would mean this flying would be outsourced.

They went on to say:

Had either pilot group not been able to provide us with the working arrangements needed to get a return on our investment, another entity would have done the flying.

That is just brazen. Qantas says it doesn't count as outsourcing if they set up a shell company themselves. Qantas made that exact same threat to their long-haul pilots two years ago. And on top of all the shell companies of Qantas there are third-party labour hire firms like Swissport paying workers so badly that they're underpaying the award.

The point is this: if Qantas workers are engaged through 20 or more different employers, single-employer bargaining does not work. If Qantas can tell its workers either to sign this agreement or they'll set up a new company to hire them, single-employer bargaining does not work. Alan Joyce has proven that multi-employer bargaining is the only way to protect and improve wages and conditions in aviation. You'll need a multi-employer agreement that cannot be undercut by another shell company or another Swissport. Otherwise, I can guarantee, there will continue to be a race to the bottom in the aviation industry.

It isn't just aviation. The Qantas blueprint is being adopted in other industries, such as mining. That's why there is a wages crisis in this country. If the Liberal and National parties really cared about wages and the cost of living, they would get on board with the government, unions and employers—good employers—to fix our bargaining system; they would get on board with multiemployer bargaining. But we know they never will, because, as Mr Cormann let slip, low wages growth is a deliberate policy agenda.

In actual fact, wage decline was a deliberate policy agenda under the opposition's watch when they were in government. That's why the opposition opposed a pay rise for aged-care workers. That's why the opposition were opposed to an increase in the minimum wage. But just as on climate and so many issues, the Australian public, employers and workers have moved on, past the coalition's internal culture wars.

We saw just last week a road transport industry round table convened by Minister Burke. There he had the Transport Workers Union; employer groups such as the Australian Road Transport Industrial Organisation, the National Road Freighters Association and the National Road Transport Association; employers like Linfox, Toll, FBT and ACFS; major clients Coles and Woolworths; truck drivers—employees as well as owner-drivers—and even gig platforms like Uber and DoorDash come to a settlement and a suggestion about what needs to happen in the future. That's the future for Australia.

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

Right across Australia, everyday Australians are struggling to make ends meet in the most basic of ways: rent, food, bills and health care. Too often, the people most impacted by these pressures are, in fact, First Nations people. In my electorate office in Perth, we have had a constituent contact us who was a victim of domestic violence. She left her abuser but could not find appropriate, safe and affordable accommodation in a timely manner. She was in fact advised that she would need to wait years for public housing, even if she were priority listed. This in itself is extremely traumatising.

Poverty is a vicious cycle, and we know that once someone is experiencing poverty it's unnecessarily hard for them to break out. We also know that poverty is a political choice. It is extremely bold of the opposition to suddenly come out and strongly advocate for cost-of-living relief after 10 years of the squandered opportunities of previous governments. The government of today needs a bold plan, which, unfortunately, we still haven't seen, to undo the impacts of the last 10 years of inaction.

If the current government wants to prove that they are actually taking this issue seriously, axing the stage 3 tax cuts is step No. 1. It is unconscionable that the government is continuing with this when we know the $243.5 billion that would benefit the most-wealthy people in this country could be used to make real change for those who need it the most. In fact, the Prime Minister, in response to the question of my colleague Max Chandler-Mather yesterday in the House, showed just how out of touch he is, jokingly comparing the lavish housing he gets whilst being one of the highest-paid politicians in the world to the public housing system that has people sleeping in tents because they can't access it.

The Greens took to the recent election a comprehensive policy platform that wasn't just about one policy and that will help to address cost-of-living pressures. The Greens know that a better future is possible. Currently, the only thing that's standing in the way of that is the lack of political will from the current government.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The matter of public importance that we are debating today is one that's in my name, and I think it's important to make sure that those listening at home because there's nothing else on the wireless are fully aware of the words of it. It is:

The failure of the Albanese Government to have a plan that addresses the rising cost of living facing all Australians.

The most important part of that is 'a plan', because it is pretty clear that this Labor government doesn't have a plan.

It's abundantly clear that the Labor government won the election in May of this year and my mob lost. Obviously, I'm workshopping my pain about that still, but that side are in power. What is interesting is how the new government—who have been in since May, so it's almost six months of being in power—are failing to understand that they're the government, that they have a responsibility to look after Australians and that they can't keep acting like a bunch of wannabe student politicians. They go around continuing to blame the previous government for everything from their bad haircuts to lost socks in the washing machine, but, in fact, they're the government and they're the decision-makers.

What is abundantly clear is that there is no plan. It reminds me a bit of that Monty Python skit about the dead parrot, in that there is no plan. It's a dead plan; it was dead on arrival. And we've got a government that goes around doing a lot of talking. They get a gold medal for talking. We witnessed that in question time today, where both Senator Wong and Senator Watt showed their hubris, their arrogance, their ego, their self-confidence and the self-congratulation party—I won't say orgy—that they are having in terms of how brilliant they are. But they're not delivering. They also regard a series of press conferences as a strategy or a plan. They regard sending some tweets out as a plan.

The former British Prime Minister David Cameron once famously said that too many tweets make a—well, it's a word that members of the CFMMEU would use when they're abusing females on a worksite, so you can imagine what the word is. There's no plan. There are a lot of tweets, a lot of press conferences, a lot of media releases being issued.

Those Australian families who went off to work today will come home and they'll get the news—depending on what time they listen to it, whether the radio is on in the car or they watch the six o'clock news—that the interest rate on their mortgage has gone up another half a per cent. So, if you live in one of the big cities and you've got a mortgage of, let's say, around $700,000 or $750,000—which is a lot money, but it's not uncommon in the big cities of Australia to have a mortgage like that—since May this year, since the election of this Labor government, your monthly mortgage payments have gone up by $800 or $900.

That is scary. That is very scary for the working families of Australia who are dealing with a Labor government that doesn't have a plan but is far more interested in playing politics, far more interested in media stunts, far more interested in having summits where people get together. I think a quarter of the attendees at the Jobs and Skills Summit last week were union officials or connected to the Labor Party, so this giant talkfest last week was a very broad, representative summit.

But for those Australians whose mortgages have now gone up today by another half a per cent, what is the message from this Albanese Labor government? It's arrogance. It's hubris. It's the laughing that we saw from the Labor ministers during question time today. It's the belief that they are invincible. This was particularly personified by Senator Watt, who is the new agriculture minister. Senator Watt was taking credit, as the minister, for the output of Australia's farmers. And I stand in this place as someone whose parents were cane farmers, whose grandparents were cane farmers and whose great grandparents were cane farmers. If you look at my hands, they clearly are not the hands of a farmer, and I think to myself: no politician, especially no Labor minister, should ever take credit for the work of a farmer and their family, or the work of a small businessperson and their family, because the work and the output that comes from the farm and comes from that business isn't because of some Labor politician; it's because of that farmer and that small businessperson.

What fascinated me was how Senator Watt was taking credit for the increased output of Australia's farmers. He was taking credit essentially for the good weather that we've had recently. I was thinking, 'Mate, you've got no idea about Queensland, a state which you claim to be a senator for. It's a state where some parts are still in drought. It's a state where, over a 10-year period, you might have one or two good years of good production, then you will have one or two years of average production and then you will have five or six years of very bad production.

If Labor are prepared to claim all the credit for the work that the farmers and graziers in Queensland do, I look forward to them standing up here when the drought comes back, which it will, and taking the blame for the hardship that has been wrecked upon and wreaked upon the businesses and farmers of Queensland. We've got a Labor government who don't understand how you address the cost of living. To quote one of their former leaders, who's now with my colleague Senator Hanson's party, it's not a conga line of press conferences; it's sitting down and doing the real hard work of government. It's sitting down and making decisions that will benefit the Australian people. It is sitting down and making sure—and I say this as someone who believes strongly in the cutting of taxes—that you continue to cut taxes.

It is making sure, also, that you deliver on your promises. One of the most interesting promises that Labor made during the last campaign was that they would reduce the power bills for Australians by $275. That was a pretty—

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

By 2025.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Here we go. The chitty-chat squad have started. They said they would reduce Australians' power bills by $275. The Labor leader promised to do that 97 times during the campaign. The Labor leader got up and said, 'We will cut Australian power bills by $275.' He didn't have a little footnote and speak in a little soft voice and say, 'It will be by 2025, and it will depend on what Penny Wong tells me and if I cross my fingers and brush my hair a certain way.' He promised the Australian people 97 times he would cut their bills by $275. How many times do you think the Labor Prime Minister and the Labor government have mentioned that particular promise since polling day? How many times? Zero. None. Zip. Niet. Non, if you're French. They haven't mentioned it at all, because they lied to the Australian people. The Labor Party lied to the Australian people. Not only do they not have a plan to reduce the cost-of-living pressures on Australians; during the election campaign they lied, and they knew they were lying.

The Labor leader says 97 times, 'I'm going to cut your power bill,' and then since that election he has recommitted to cutting people's power bills zero times. That's because what you see over there is arrogance, and it's the arrogance of a government who think they are invincible. It's the arrogance of a government who think they know better than the Australian people. It's the arrogance of a government who are snubbing their nose at the working men and women of Queensland and the farmers and the graziers. Shame on the Labor Party. (Time expired)

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australians are paying the price for a decade of missed opportunities and messed up priorities by previous Liberal governments, from Abbott to Turnbull to Morrison: a trillion dollar debt. The last senator's contribution was so disjointed, but they are trying to run away at a million miles an hour from the fact that they left us with a trillion dollar debt to the Australian community. High inflation, rising interest rates and the cost-of-living crisis are all the consequence of the previous Liberal government's mismanagement. Australians understand who created these challenges and the mess, because they know that the Liberals did nothing to address any of these issues until five minutes to midnight prior to the federal election. Petrol prices are up, groceries are up, rents are up, child care has become too expensive and the price of health care is up, all under the watch of the previous Liberal governments. As a government we understand what we inherited, but we're not going to deny it, making sure that the Australian people understand that that trillion-dollar debt was on their watch. But we've been elected to fix it, and that's exactly what we're going to do.

COVID exposed us to many weaknesses in our economy, and let's not confuse weaknesses for mismanagement by the Liberal governments. We know they allowed manufacturing to be shipped offshore, and what we want to do is invest in manufacturing and bring those secure well-paid jobs back here to Australia. Again, those opposite did nothing for the cost of living, and all they do is criticise the Albanese government. I'd just like to correct the previous member. He's obviously not very good with numbers. We've only been in government four months. It might feel like six months in opposition, but believe me you're going to get used to it, because you're going to be there for a while. We have an economic plan. We're a government that listened to the Australian community. They're sick of division. They're sick of disunity. What they want is to work together. They want the opposition, the government, business and unions to work together to resolve these issues. You can come in here and whinge all you like about how bad we are as a government, but what we really see is a stark contrast with a government that wants to bring people together. We want to listen to business, we want to listen to unions and we want to work together.

At the summit last week what did we see? Where was Mr Dutton, Mr 22 per cent? Where was he? He was nowhere to be seen, probably having a long lunch on Friday afternoon. We saw the Nationals leader come along to that summit with community leaders, NGOs, the union movement, premiers from each of the states and territory leaders. They want to work with the federal government on finding the solutions, because they understand how tough it is for families out there. What we've seen is a change in direction for pensioners. You don't have to go back to work, but if you're of pension age and you're fit and healthy and you want to go back to work to earn some money, we're going to support you to do that. Not only are you going to be earning additional money that will help you through this period but you will also be mentors for those people you work around, and that's a very good thing.

I've just meet with representatives of TAFE colleges from Tasmania, and they said to me that they are suffering because over the last decade the Liberal governments have tried to run and have successfully, unfortunately, run TAFEs into the ground. I see Senator Duniam over there smiling and laughing. As a fellow Tasmanian I'm very disappointed because his state Liberal colleagues have done exactly that. The Liberals are so afraid of what we might find out that they won't allow even Labor senators to visit the TAFE campuses. That's how paranoid they are. The reality is we will, as we've already committed, invest in TAFE. We will ensure Australians get the opportunity to get the skills and training they need for the jobs of today and the jobs of tomorrow. We know it's going to take more than just those Australians that can enter the workforce now, but we do have a plan, a plan that you can watch us implement from the other side. (Time expired)

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

I think this is a very important debate. I've got three minutes to talk on this issue. Listening to the debate that's going on here from either side, did I hear answers from the government then how they're going to address the cost of living? No; none whatsoever. All I hear are complaints about what the other side did. Let me remind the people that Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke said in the 1980s, 'No child will be living in poverty in this country by the year 2000.' When I watch TV, nearly on a weekly basis I see the advertisement for the Smith Family stating that there are a million children in Australia living in poverty, over a million children asking for help. I don't know if this chamber or the leaders of this nation in this place really can relate to the Australian people and how much they are hurting. When I turned on the TV this morning I saw that 40 per cent of people recognise the cost of living as being the biggest issue for them. What has the Labor Party done to address this? All they've spoken about is a robodebt royal commission and Scott Morrison's ministry positions. They have spoken about the jobs summit. What was that? Really? You know, about jobs.

Labor talk about the pensioners working; well, sorry, that was my policy. I'm pleased to see that the Liberal Party have taken it up but that was, again, my policy. You talk about the TAFE colleges; again, it's something I have been speaking about for years. The apprenticeship scheme was my policy to get apprentices working in 2018.

If you want to address the cost of living in this country, you address what is the cost of electricity in Australia, not only for Australian homes. The government is driving up the cost of electricity for normal households, industries, manufacturing. This is going to drive increased prices. Farmers have told me they can't afford electricity. This is a problem, yet the government is bringing in an emissions target that's going to drive up electricity costs. They have done it in England. They've done it in Europe. Guess what? It's failed. Beer in England now is $34 a pint. If you take away from the Australian people the ability to go to the pub with their mates and have a beer, you're destroying their whole life. That's what it is about. You don't realise what you're doing for the Australian people and the future generations of this nation. Don't talk to me about it. You have no idea. (Time expired)

Wendy Askew (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise today to speak on the matter of public importance regarding the failure of the Albanese government to have a plan to address the rising cost of living facing Australians today despite the government's repeated claims during the election campaign that they had a plan. How appropriate it is that we're discussing this today, the day the Reserve Bank increased the interest rates by a further 0.5 per cent, taking the cash rate to 2.35 per cent, the highest level since December 2014. This rise is the fourth 0.5 per cent rise in each of the four successive months since the election and it will send even more Australians into mortgage stress. In Tasmania, where the average mortgage is around $450,000, payments could be increased by an extra $130 per month. That's $130 less money for those families every month.

This interest rate rise comes on top of an inflation rate of 6.1 per cent as at June this year, which is the highest rate of inflation in almost 32 years. Coincidently, this peak in inflation in the December 1990 quarter came at the time of 'the recession we had to have', according to Labor back then. Then there's the rising costs of groceries and the rising cost of electricity. Tasmania's power bills increased by 12 per cent in July, which is an extra $200 a year. The cost of living is higher now than ever, but we're still waiting to hear of the Albanese government's plan on how they will deal with this crisis.

However, the Parliamentary Budget Office has some insight for us on Labor's policies. The PBO has confirmed that the government's policies will result in higher debt and deficits than the plans the coalition put forward ahead of the election. So not only are we in a worse position since Labor took government but we will be worse off in the future too due to the cost of their policies.

The Assistant Treasurer is predicting hyperinflation and more industrial action. We don't need predictions about doom and gloom; we need action from a government that actually has a plan to get the cost of living down for Australians. During the coalition's term, more than $1.9 million jobs were created, with over 1.1 million of those filled by women. Female workforce participation grew to 62.24 per cent under our watch compared to 51. 7 per cent when we took over government, and the gender pay gap reduced too. The unemployment rate dropped to 3.9 per cent, the lowest in decades, and the number of trade apprentices in training hit 220,000, which is the highest level since records began in 1963.

Besides creating jobs so that more people could earn their money, the coalition cut taxes. Low- and medium-income earners became eligible for a tax offset in July, something many people have already realised benefits from after submitting their tax returns in recent months. And we legislated the personal income tax cuts to ensure that around 95 per cent of taxpayers will not pay a marginal tax rate of more than 30 cents in the dollar in 2024-25. We also reduced the company tax rate for small businesses to 25 per cent—and remember, small businesses are what drives Australia's economy, and the people running these important operations were being taxed at 30 per cent under Labor. The coalition introduced the unincorporated small business tax discount and lifted this rate from five per cent in 2015-16 to 16 per cent from 2021-22. Combined, these change will deliver more than $21 billion in tax cuts to small business from 2015-16 to 2024-25, with around $2.6 billion estimated to flow through in 2022-23. Not only did the coalition expand access to small business tax concessions but we also provided tax relief and reduced red tape.

Then there's the coalition's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the course of the pandemic the coalition provided $314 billion in economic support to help Australians get to the other side of this huge economic shock. This support included JobKeeper, the program that saved 700,000 jobs and stopped the unemployment rate reaching 15 per cent. It was the biggest economic support program in Australia's history.

So where is the Albanese government's plan to address the cost-of-living rises that are impacting us all? There is no plan. The Prime Minister has already broken his election promise to reduce power prices for families and businesses by $275, but we all know that our energy bills are rising and look set to keep going up. Before the election, Mr Albanese said Australians would be better off under a Labor government. I don't think the people who are facing a 0.5 per cent interest rate rise on their mortgage today feel they are better off.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to thank Senator McGrath for putting forward today's MPI, because it allows us to outline the ways that Labor, in our first 100 days, have acted to help Australians with their cost of living and what we plan to do. This stands in bleak contrast with the actions of the former Liberal government, which ignored Australians as their costs went up, drove down wages and even delayed the release of a report on electricity price rises for their own political gain. Let's just think about that. The Liberal government had a report on electricity prices saying that electricity prices would rise, and they deliberately did not release it—for their own political benefit.

Australians are paying the price of a decade of missed opportunities and messed-up priorities under the coalition. Our government took office at a time of rising inflation, falling real wages, a skills-shortage crisis, rising interest rates and a trillion dollars in Liberal Party debt. These are the consequences of years of economic mismanagement by our predecessors. Australians actually do understand that we didn't create these challenges, but they did elect us to take responsibility for cleaning them up—and that's what we're doing. So, one of the first acts of the Albanese government was to successfully argue for the minimum wage to keep pace with inflation. This helped 2.8 million Australians. We followed that with a submission to the Fair Work Commission that unequivocally supports a wage increase for aged-care workers. What did those on the other side do about aged-care workers in the nine years they were there? Zilch—not a thing.

Our budget in October will include our plans for cheaper child care and cheaper medicines, making a real difference to household budgets for millions of families. Labor will cut the maximum copayment under the PBS from the current maximum of $42.50 to $30. This represents a saving of $12.50, or 29 per cent. The changes to the PBS will take effect from 1 January 2023 and will save Australians more than $190 million a year in out-of-pocket costs.

Let me tell you about Labor's childcare plan. The plan means that 96 per cent of families with a child or children in care will be better off. That's 1.26 million families. Labor will lift the maximum rate of childcare subsidy to 90 per cent for families for the first child in care, increase childcare subsidy rates for every family that has one child in care and earns less than $530,000 in household income, keep higher childcare subsidy rates for the second and additional children in care and extend the increased subsidy to outside school hours care.

We on this side are working hard to deliver our commitment to lift the speed limit on the economy that those on the other side implemented. We are working hard to get wages moving again, with investments in cheaper and cleaner energy, advanced manufacturing skills and fee-free TAFE. In fact, the government is committed to providing 465,000 fee-free TAFE places and 45,000 new TAFE places in industries facing skills shortages. I'm pleased to say that this includes early childhood education. These fee free places will obviously be a massive saving for those looking to reskill or improve their qualifications and help them to increase their take-home pay.

Our guiding principles as a government are about ensuring no-one is left behind. More than 4.7 million Australians will receive a much-needed boost to their social security payments from this month to help ease cost-of-living pressures. The Albanese Labor government has announced the largest indexation increase to payments in more than 30 years for allowances and 12 years for pensions. The age pension, disability support pension and carer payment are all set to rise by $38.90 a fortnight for singles and $58.80 a fortnight for couples. The maximum rate of pension will increase to $1,026.50 a fortnight for singles and $773.80 for each member of a pension couple or $1,547.60 per couple, including pension supplement and energy supplement.

JobSeeker payment, parenting payment, Abstudy and rent assistance will also increase. The rate of jobseeker payment for singles without children will increase by $25.70 a fortnight to $677.20, including energy supplement, while parenting payment single will increase by $35.20. (Time expired)

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

Make no mistake, this cost-of-living crisis is being made far worse by the indifference of this government to those who right now are doing it the very toughest. After the biggest electoral win for progressives that this nation has ever seen, you would think that the new government would finally work towards supporting folks in our communities who are struggling to get by. They certainly talk the talk. This morning the Prime Minister said these exact words:

A compassionate nation like ours cannot simply allow the suffering of our fellow Australians to continue unabated.

Prime Minister, you are absolutely right, which is why it is particularly galling that this government, despite talking the talk, is continuing to sacrifice the most-vulnerable, most-struggling people in our community to the spiralling cost of living.

Yesterday the rate of support payments and pensions increased ever so slightly. The reality of this increase is that it amounts to an increase of only two per cent in CPI on these payments, compared to an inflation rate of seven per cent. Yet, in this context, the Albanese government is asking the community to congratulate it for this increase, to celebrate it, to treat it as evidence of a benevolent Labor Party policy, when in truth it is a fiction. All they have done is index these payments to CPI. People are rightly furious about this because people who struggle week by week, month by month, on these payments understand the difference between indexation and an actual increase, because they live it every single day. I have to ask where the government gets the gall to attempt to advertise this as a win while so many Australians are languishing in poverty, which it, in no uncertain terms, has chosen to maintain. It is particularly affecting those on the disability support pension who were left behind again and again by the previous government and can expect, it seems, no better under— (Time expired.)

David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Indexation increases to a range of payments were announced yesterday, including JobSeeker. Recipients will get an extra $1.80 a day from 20 September—an extra half a coffee if they're lucky. This lifts the daily rate from $46 to $48. Expecting people to live on $48 a day is expecting people to live in poverty. The price of food alone is soaring, with estimates suggesting it could be costing lower income households as much as 40 per cent of their take-home wage to buy a week's worth of food.

This comes at a time where the costs of rent are driving people to homelessness. We're having to talk about the working homeless here in Australia. In the last 12 months the average rent on a unit in Canberra increased by 11 per cent. It is the most expensive city to rent in in our country. Nationally, there are 164,000 people on the social housing wait list—164,000. It is not an exaggeration to call this a housing crisis.

We are in a cost-of-living crisis, too. In the pandemic, the COVID supplement increased the rate of JobSeeker and we understand now that it lifted people out of poverty. During that time, people reported improved mental health outcomes. It allowed people to eat better and keep a roof over their heads. The research now shows that four-fifths of people who were on JobSeeker were able to live above the poverty line.

Everyone deserves of a safe, warm place to live. Everyone deserves to eat fresh and healthy food. I hope the government will urgently consider raising the rate to at least $70 a day to help get people out of poverty. Thank you.

Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australians are facing a cost-of-living crisis. People are being smashed on all fronts: rising rents and mortgage repayments, rising food prices, rising education costs, rising health costs. Neither the Labor Party nor the Liberals and Nationals are interested in turning the tide around. In fact, they're actively committed to making it worse by refusing to invest in vital services, by refusing to lift income support payments and by backing in $243 billion of tax cuts for the super wealthy. Of the $243.5 billion of Labor's stage 3 tax cuts, $188 billion, or 77 per cent, of the benefit will go to the wealthiest 20 per cent of the population. Even worse, you're giving the richest one per cent as much as you are giving the bottom 65 per cent.

The commitment to raw, unadulterated neoliberalism should bring shame to all of those on the Labor benches. Labor's stage 3 tax cuts for the super-rich will turbo charge inequality in this country and effectively destroy our progressive taxation system. At a time when the share of national income going to profit is at an all-time high and the share of national income that is going to workers' wages is at an all-time low, this is both economically and morally indefensible—and you know it! You know full well that this is an indefensible policy, which is why you try to blame it on the Libs. But you know what? When you vote for it, you own it.

We must do more to deliver cost-of-living relief to people. The Greens have proposed numerous policies that would meaningfully help people to live better lives. We've talked about freezing rent for two years and then capping rent hikes to two per cent every two years. It has been done in Victoria, British Columbia, New York and Germany. Let's do that here, too. We've talked about making public education truly free, with no fees: no public school fees, free university and TAFE, and free meals for schoolkids. That will help people with cost-of-living relief. We've talked about reforming tax loopholes, reforming the petroleum resource rent tax, introducing a windfall profit tax and closing existing loopholes that let big corporations and billionaires not pay their fair share.

We've talked about free child care. Child care is a huge portion of the household budget for many families. Free child care means an ease in the cost-of-living pressures for families. It would cost around $9 billion per year, much less than the stage 3 tax cuts, to give free child care to all families. We've talked about pausing the interest rate hikes at least until the October budget. Interest rate rises are hurting both renters and new homeowners, and they are doing nothing to address supply side inflation. Labor's stage 3 tax cuts will turbocharge inequality. We need cost-of-living relief now, not more tax cuts for the wealthy.