Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today..

I've got to be honest: I really don't know where to start. What a disgraceful effort. Seriously, the dithering, the incompetence, the blatant ignorance and the casual sexism on full display today were unbelievable.

As to Senator Shoebridge's point about ChatGPT, I can tell you that Senator Farrell could probably have done with it today. He could have started by putting in, 'What is aggregate demand?' because it was very clear that he didn't even know what the term meant, let alone how this government has any plan to lower it. They don't even know what the economic term is. It is so embarrassing that basic economic principles are a complete mystery to this government. They have absolutely no understanding.

We saw over half an hour of a fundamental stunt by those at the end of the chamber, supported by those opposite. It's like a constant little filibuster we are seeing this week, because there's not quite enough to pad out the agenda for a Senate-only sitting week, so we're doing everything we can to extend the very small amount of business that we've got. We have not actually passed a bill this week, you will all be interested to know. It's a great use of everybody's time—not one bill in three days.

Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd love to pass a bill.

Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Use the guillotine.

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, where's the guillotine? They love that. I think we'd actually support it at this stage, because a bill has got to go through, so let's just bring it on. But no. We can't do that, because then what are we going to talk about later? They're all non-contro bits of legislation that everyone's supporting, with very few amendments, so what are we going to talk about?

This is the appalling behaviour of this government, aided and abetted by their mates at the end of the chamber, when all Australians are facing a cost of living crisis. The Guardian is not one of my usual sources of news, but I noticed that even the Guardian, the cheer squad for those opposite, was commenting yesterday on the fact that almost half of all Australians with mortgages are already experiencing mortgage stress, and that was before the rate rise yesterday. So they were already in mortgage stress and facing cost-of-living pressure, yet the government don't understand basic economic terms. They waste half an hour on an absolutely ridiculous stunt. If you want to have a look at some of the inappropriate commentary that's been going on in this place, let's have a look at the support for Hamas that we've seen from some people in this place. There has been beheading and burning of babies and murder of families and of young people who were at a music festival in Israel.

But somehow an offer of a lift to the airport is the most offensive thing that's ever been heard in this chamber. What a joke.

And all this is at the time when the average Australian family with a mortgage of around $750,000 now has to find an extra $24,000 per year. That's not really change that most of us have down the back of the couch. Maybe some of those that got payouts from the union before they headed into the Senate on the ALP ticket got a bit of a boost from them. That $24,000 is not a lot to them, but to most Australians it's a lot of money. And it's $24,000 after tax, so it's an awful lot of money that families have to find and earn just to be able to afford their mortgage. And this is before they even think about putting food on the table—that's gone up over eight per cent—and before they turn the lights on. Heaven forbid that, when we have a really hot summer this year, anyone wants to put air conditioning on, because no-one can afford their power bills, but those opposite—the transparency stuff is just gone. Don't even say that word; the opaque mess they operate under is a joke. The referendum was an election commitment, so we had to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on that, but the election commitment of reducing power bills by $275 has just gone by the wayside. They cannot even mention $275.

This government has become the government of Grinch. They are going to do everything they can through their economic vandalism to destroy Christmas for so many Australian families this year. It is absolutely obscene. Here they are laughing and joking about the mortgage stress that families are going to be under. The senator that was just having a good chuckle about the government of Grinch: you know what? You go and talk to those Australian families who are now wondering how they're going to pay the mortgage because of your economic recklessness and inability to understand even basic economic terms.

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

History cannot be changed simply by senators from the former government coming into this place and trying to change the reality of what happened for 10 years when they were in government. They left this country—taxpayers, every one of us—$1 trillion in debt. We know so well about the cost of living. Why do we know about the cost of living? It is because we actually go out to listen to and talk to everyday Australians all the time, unlike those opposite.

Let's get a few facts on the record. Let's talk about inflation and how that's impacting the globe. Yes, we are experiencing high inflation, and we're doing everything we can to reduce that. We talk about that in this place on a daily basis—sometimes every few hours, actually—in terms of what we have done since coming into government. We've increased wages for ordinary Australians. We've invested a lot of money into aged care. We've reduced the cost of medication. We've allowed you to get 60-day scripts, which helps people like me and others who have chronic illnesses to get 60 days of medication, which means they go back to their GP less often, which allows more appointments for other Australians.

But they don't want to hear about this. They don't want to hear about the investment we're making into TAFE by giving fee-free paces in TAFE for essential areas of the community where we need more workers. I can't let today go past, not in taking note and talking about aged care. For 10 years they were in government. They already had the foundations from the previous Labor minister in the Hon. Mark Butler, who set the new foundations for aged care and started that process. They came into government because that's what the Australian people voted for, and what happened? What happened for almost 10 years? Well, it hadn't even got to 10 years before they had to call a royal commission into aged care on their own failings. Why? Because they had only ripped money out. They used aged care as a teller machine. That's what they did when they were in government. They did not invest in the workforce. They did not invest in ensuring that there was a long-term strategy not only to keep people working in aged care and highly skill them but to attract new workers.

We will never apologise for putting older Australians first.

We won't apologise for reversing the neglect. The royal commission report was called 'neglect'. It was under this opposition, when they were in government, so we will not apologise for insisting that there are nurses in aged-care homes 24 hours a day. It was already happening in Tasmania but they still experienced neglect under those opposite. They invested nothing. The food that was being served up to older Australians, no-one in this chamber, I can assure you, would ever have eaten. Let's not even talk about the failure of six ministers—six ministers! Why did they fail? Because they really didn't care.

Those opposite come into this chamber and whinge. Now they are so concerned about the cost of living and inflation, housing crisis in this country but, when they had the opportunity to really do something, they did nothing. Since they've been in opposition, they are doing what they always do when they go into opposition—that is, they go 'no, no, no'. They voted against providing the funds to assure more affordable homes are built in this country. What did they do? They voted against ensuring that there is more social housing available for people who they probably don't even meet in their daily lives. What have they done for homelessness in this country? It is a blight on all of us that the fastest-growing cohort of homeless people in this country are women over 55.

Those opposite constantly criticise Labor about investing in superannuation. Why do we do that? Because we want every Australian worker to have the opportunity to have a secure retirement so they can afford to have a roof over their head, so they can afford to go to the doctor when they need to. We are investing in skills and training and in getting wages moving. When it was your policy, your own ministers used to say your policy was to keep wages low. We are in a crisis because you put us there with $1 trillion debt.

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

Question time today was particularly illuminating because of a lack of information given by ministers in response to questions. But what was particularly illuminating for Australians, particularly mortgage holders, was this hubris, this arrogance, this Marie Antoinette approach of the modern Labor Party of 'let people eat cake'. We have John Farrell, who is the Marie Antoinette of the Albanese Labor government. For those Australians, including me, who saw our mortgages go up yesterday, one question that was actually put by me to Minister Farrell was: What is the definition of mortgage stress? Minister Farrell just didn't answer the question.

I'll take Senator Colbeck's interjection. He didn't know the answer, but I think it was more that he didn't care. He didn't care that millions of Australians are facing something called mortgage stress. It is all right for the modern Labor Party with the money that they earn. But they have fallen out of touch with middle Australia. We saw that with the Voice referendum, where the Labor Party was convinced of the righteousness of the Voice and would brook no arguments against it. They forgot that the biggest issue in Australia today is cost of living, and it is only getting worse under this Labor government.

The questions that were put by the opposition today to the government were to elicit information. My second question was: How many Australian households are currently experiencing mortgage stress, and how many more will as a result of this interest rate rise under Labor? We wanted the information from the Labor ministers. They didn't know or didn't care. But it goes so much deeper than that in their approach to how they deal with the Australians who are facing not only this mortgage cliff, in many instances, but also mortgage stress.

For those who are listening at home, we were able to find out the answer to the first question, which is that mortgage stress is generally defined as a household needing to spend more than 30 per cent of disposable income on mortgage repayments. That is only going to rise, because under Labor we've had 12 interest rate rises in the last 16 months. Of the 17 times that the Reserve Bank have met since Labor has been in power, they've increased interest rates 12 times. When we were in power the Reserve Bank met 96 times and only raised interest rates once. This is a telling statistic in terms of how the independent Reserve Bank looks at both the economic conditions governing Australia and, by default, the policies of the government that is governing Australia.

What mortgage stress means is that families who've got a mortgage of, say, $750,000 are going to be paying an extra $24,000 a year. A mortgage of $750,000 is not uncommon in the capital cities. Where I live, out in the Darling Downs, that would be at the top end of the scale, but in the capital cities having a mortgage of three-quarters of a million dollars is actually quite common. I've spoken in this place previously about families on the Sunshine Coast, where my office is, having to pull their children out of sport because they can't afford the fees for them to play soccer and netball. What we've got, Mr Acting Deputy President, is the Labor Party, by their refusal to answer questions and by the manner in which they refuse to answer questions, thumbing their noses at the people of Australia. What is telling is that Minister Farrell said they were going to be in power a very long time. Such hubris! I think, like Icarus, he might be flying too close to the sun.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In this debate on Senator Hughes's motion to take note of answers—indeed, as was also demonstrated in the questions asked by the opposition—we have an opposition that is unable to take account of the legacy of its time in government, including the impact on the nation's aggregate demand, which has left millions of people in our country in mortgage stress. Indeed, some 1.5 million households are experiencing mortgage stress at the moment. The opposition cannot, with any credibility, deliver a critique of our policies, because they cannot take account of the legacy of their own government.

Strong economic management is needed to support justified aggregate demand in key areas, such as providing access to medications by ensuring that they are affordable and accessible. We need to manage the cost of living and put downward inflationary pressure on areas where we know Australians need to be able to maximise their spending to maximise their wellbeing, particularly in these times of high interest rates. That is exactly why we introduced the electricity subsidy that was delivered through the states—some $275, on average. While we know that electricity prices have indeed grown more than that in many places, but not all, that enables households to spend money on the things that matter most.

Similarly, we have supported millions of households around Australia through changes to parenting payments, child care and medicine subsidies, access to bulk-billing and many more initiatives.

Indeed we don't want to suppress aggregate demand for critical things that families and households need, but we have been stuck with the inflationary pressures on our economy, not only from Ukraine and fuel prices and from global economic headwinds but also, very tellingly, from a trillion dollars of Liberal-National coalition debt.

What do high levels of government debt mean for aggregate demand? What do high levels of government debt mean when governments refuse to balance their budget and manage aggregate demand? It adds up to trillions of dollars worth of debt. What has our government done to manage aggregate demand? It most certainly has included balancing the budget so that we are not spending more than our nation earns, like those opposite did. Sure, there were times in the economic cycle in the past few years—for example, during COVID—when we supported the deliberate lifting of aggregate demand to keep the economy moving. But heavens above—the money that you took and that you let your corporate mates take off with! When Qantas outsourced workers and sacked them at the same time as pocketing millions of dollars of JobSeeker payments—which they were then able to turn into corporate profit—that added to the bottom line of trillions dollars worth of debt. That certainly didn't put any downward pressure as far as your government's legacy goes on aggregate demand! And what cheek— (Time expired)

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

What an embarrassment of riches for the opposition to pursue, in terms of the non-answers given to questions asked by coalition senators in question time today. It could not be more perfectly bounded than by the example set by the acting Leader of the Government in the Senate who could not give to the parliament and to the Australian people the definition of 'mortgage stress' when asked by my colleague in question time today. We see this time and time again. We see the refusal to answer a question. We see the deflection of blame to somebody else or to something else: 'It's not our fault.' They're not willing to take responsibility for holding the Treasury benches, which they do at the will of the Australian people. They trot out the talking points. You can see the ball bouncing along the talking points. 'We understand Australians are doing it tough,' they say. But Australians are tired of hearing that from the government because, as we know, the government is not actually doing anything about it. The government continues to blame everybody else.

Likewise, when it comes to salmon farming on the west coast of Tasmania, we see extraordinary concerns. We see threatening letters from the Minister for the Environment and Water, and it just follows on from other things. In particular, people on the east coast of Tasmania in those resource based industries are suffering from the lack of capacity of this government to make a decision. I congratulate the Premier on his response to the environment minister's letter. We will be supporting the salmon industry. What did Premier Rockliff say? He said: 'I want to be clear. I will not stand by and allow the federal Labor government to kill off our salmon industry and the 350 jobs that it supports.' Mind you, the government couldn't even tell us today how many jobs the salmon industry supports. I give a shout-out to the mayor of the West Coast Council, Mr Shane Pitt, who is completely unimpressed with Ms Plibersek's threats. 'Minister Plibersek is playing political games with the lives of people in our community, and it's a bloody disgrace,' Councillor Pitt says, and good on Councillor Pitt for sticking up for his community.

It's just like the workers at MMG, who are waiting for a decision on being able to continue the life of that mine on the west coast. The salmon farmers and the communities of people they support should be supported by this government, and all we hear are threats from the minister and a refusal to make decisions in support of the industry. The Tasmanian government, along with industry, has put a strong plan on the table to protect the maugean skate, and what we want to see from this government is unequivocal support for the Tasmanian salmon industry.

Question agreed to.