Senate debates
Wednesday, 7 September 2022
Statements by Senators
Economy
1:54 pm
Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
As the Reserve Bank raises interest rates another jumbo sized half per cent, we gasp at the audacity, the cheek, of all major parties talking about cost of living. Decades of Greens, Liberal, Labor and Nationals policies slowly destroying our country caused the cost-of-living crisis.
In just three months under the coalition, groceries got five per cent more expensive, an increase of 20 per cent per year. Fuel prices will jump again when Labor cancels the 22c-a-litre tax discount. Wholesale power prices are at record highs and will flow through to power bills. That's why Labor quietly crab-walked away from their election promise to reduce your power bills by $275. Both sides take turns to gradually destroy our country. Both forced intermittent wind and solar pipedreams, driving up power prices. High power prices make everything else more expensive.
The coalition now, laughably, claim to be fiscal conservatives yet ran the largest money-printing operation our country has ever seen: $508 billion conjured out of thin air in electronic journal entries. That supercharged demand, the culprit in runaway inflation—neither side will talk about it.
Labor now plans an immigration flood. Two hundred thousand new arrivals each year will drive up demand for housing and services, making costs of living worse. This is the difference between keeping lights on and sitting in the dark; between eating healthy groceries and walking down the supermarket canned-goods aisle; between new school uniforms and sending children off to school with holes in their socks; between a roof over our heads and being out on the street.
Instead, One Nation policies will build an environment making our economy stronger. Stable breadwinner jobs will flourish. Our policies will unlock Australia's abundant natural resources so we can be the world's energy superpower, as we should be. One Nation policies will return Australia to having the world's cheapest power bills. We are one community. We have one flag. We are one nation.