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

A letter has been received from Senator Hughes:

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

With Australia in an entrenched household recession, anaemic growth, productivity going backwards, and suffering now worsening under Labor's cost of living crisis, the Treasurer is blaming everyone but himself and his three failed budgets.

Is the proposal supported?

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

With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerks will set the clock in line with the informal arrangements made by the whips.

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Every single Australian and their family are doing its tough, yet every single day we hear from this government and particularly the Treasurer that it is everyone else's fault other than that of the government. Rather than taking responsibility, rather than accepting—

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

Just a moment. Senator Hughes, you will need to move the resolution first. My apologies. Please just continue. No, you don't have to. I was getting some other advice.

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Okay. We're all good?

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

Please continue.

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You were just worried I was getting into a bit of a pattern there, and you thought you'd just interrupt that thought!

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

Senator Hughes, the clock was stopped, so please continue giving your contribution to the debate.

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We know that this government has spent its entire term fighting everything except inflation. They have spent this entire term trying to divide our nation—to tear this nation apart by its very fabric. We know there was the half a billion dollars spent on the referendum, with its whole objective of dividing this nation by race. They have done everything they can to not look at inflation.

We know that those on the government benches now have forgotten that COVID occurred. All of a sudden, that is the word that cannot be spoken. It's like the $275 that was coming off our energy bills—the number that can never speak its name. But we now know as well that we don't mention COVID because they don't want to acknowledge what was happening over the last few years of the coalition government. But, even with that, this government inherited low unemployment, it inherited strong growth and it inherited a country that was well on its way to recovery out of COVID. It's extraordinary how our country performed throughout COVID and how many jobs were saved. But they have managed to tip all the cookies out of the cookie jar, spill the mess everywhere and continue to make it absolutely appalling for every single household.

The reality is we've been in a per capita recession for 18 months. Those that sit on the treasury benches may be in denial about this, but I'll tell you who's not in denial about the fact that we are in a per capita recession and we have been for 18 months, and that is every single Australian family whose mortgage repayments, the interest repayments on their loans, have tripled—triple repayments on those interest rates.

The pressure that is being put on Australian families is extraordinary, yet those opposite seem to almost make fun of the situation. They're one step off saying that Australians have never had it so good, and the reason they need to keep trotting out the same talking points is that Australians don't believe them. Australians aren't feeling it. Australians know that the average Australian family needs to find an extra $35,000 a year. That's not the kind of cash that is just hiding down the back of the lounge. The average Australian family is having to find $35,000 a year, yet this government will not take any responsibility. They will continue to project every single one of their failures onto someone else. It was just incredible to hear the Treasurer come out and start to hark back to the war in Ukraine. That was their line when they first came into government 2½ years ago: it is everybody else's fault but theirs. But we know that the sticky inflation is staying so sticky because of everything they're doing. That's because, as the RBA tries to slow the economy down to get inflation back under control through its lever of interest rate rises, what we're seeing here is a government addicted to spending—a government that has over $300 billion of new spending.

We have a government that is actually taking no notice of what's happening in the private sector, which is the sector that actually creates jobs—the market. They're not taking any notice of what's happening in the marketplace and the private sector with the slowdowns, and they're artificially buoying up the economy through directly paying and increasing the Public Service and the workforce in those care economies. It is not sustainable. In fact, hearing it described as a Ponzi scheme today is probably the best description of the way that this government is handling the economy. Australia cannot afford another term of government by those sitting opposite.

It is extraordinary how this economy is continuing to contract. Australians are continuing to do it tougher and tougher every single day, and there is no end in sight. Things just look like they're going to keep getting worse. No-one's happy about it. You're the government. Do something about it.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on this matter of public importance moved by Senator Hughes on the economy. I have to confess how bitterly disappointed I am—and continue to be—by the coalition's repeated failure to bring anything of genuine substance into this chamber for a discussion.

The attitude of this opposition is well evidenced in what has been brought to the chamber today. It's an opposition not defined by ambition or aspiration or good will. Those are the values which we on this side of the chamber very much hold dear. But today's MPI reveals an opposition defined by their relentless drive to undermine progress, to diminish hope and to dance on the struggle of Australians who are responding to challenges in our economy and who are working very hard to do that. Instead, what we see is a gleeful opposition coming in here, pretending that they care but crying crocodile tears and actually delighting in every moment that they can say that Australians are doing it tough. And that's all they do. They say the words, and then they say: 'But don't give them any assistance. Don't give Australians assistance. Don't spend.' We heard it through Senator Hughes's contribution: 'Yes, Australians are doing it tough, but do not spend. The government should not be spending. The government should not be helping Australians. They should not be spending.'

So what we've seen is the reality of many challenges to families. High interest rates are the legacy of 10 years of economic mismanagement under the coalition, and certainly that has left Australians with less than they deserve. We do know that Australians are doing it tough, and they need a government that will acknowledge that and respond to it, and that is what we're doing. If Senator Hughes genuinely cared about supporting Australians, and, if the terms in her statement here before the Senate mattered in reality—

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

Sorry, Senator O'Neill. Senator Scarr, do you have a point of order?

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Multicultural Engagement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Point of order: impugning the motives of a fellow senator in terms of saying, 'If Senator Hughes genuinely cared', as if she didn't. I think that should be withdrawn.

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

Senator Scarr, there is no point of order. Senator O'Neill, please continue.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can only wait for Senator Hughes to bring forward some dollars to go with the profession of care, because at the moment all we hear from the opposition is: 'Don't spend. Don't support Australians.' The affectation of care and the reality of responding are two different things.

We need actual policies to be advanced in this place, to be put on the record by the coalition, instead of these hollow talking points. The reality right now for Australians, who we are governing for, is that inflation absolutely is still higher than we would like it, but it's less than the six per cent that it was when we came to government, which was what was inflicted on Australians under the Liberal-National coalition. We can absolutely say that underlying inflation is moderated and the momentum of inflationary pressure is actually going downwards. That is a good thing. It is worth celebrating, and it is worth saying to people that, if you're struggling, hold on. We see that struggle, and that's why we want to assist you with things that you need, such as your electricity.

We know that, under the coalition, they didn't deliver a surplus and they didn't manage the economy well. We know that, under the opposition, people's electricity prices really became a problem, and today we had questions in question time where Senator McAllister was explaining what the chaos of energy policy under the Liberal-National coalition determined in terms of the market's reaction. It's into that chaos that we have brought order. Of course, we've made commitments to assist families in real terms with what they need—to assist every single household under every roof in this nation.

Australians can expect $300 to help them, not to pay their bill in its entirety but to help them. That's $300 per household to make sure that they get a bit of relief from the energy costs that we know are part of why Australians are doing it tough. We know that the challenges facing small businesses are significant as well, and that is why we have a small business package to assist. Over a million businesses are going to get the benefit of support from Labor. Making rent cheaper for a million households is a great commitment to help people. We've delivered tax cuts for every working Australian. All of these things are indicators of support for— (Time expired)

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

Is the Albanese Labor government ever going to take responsibility for anything it does? Earlier today, I highlighted a report by the Queensland Council of Social Service showing the average family is over budget by $116 per week in Labor's cost-of-living crisis. This is the reality faced by the Australian people today. We're going backwards in our standard of living.

We can't keep up with the inflation driven by record immigration and increased Labor government spending. This spending is also increasing our national debt, which is approaching $1 trillion. Last year, we paid about $18 billion in interest on this debt. How many hospitals, schools, affordable houses or aged-care facilities could be built with $18 billion a year? This is just crazy.

Labor claims it has created thousands of new jobs, but what good is this to our economy when two-thirds of them are being paid by taxpayers? There are all these new public servants in the back office, many on generous salaries unjustified by their responsibilities, when we should be generating real jobs that boost productivity. It's just another way that Labor's policies are driving inflation. Labor won't accept the blame for its disastrous policies. Labor has tried to blame foreign wars, the former government and the RBA—anyone but the person who is truly responsible, Anthony Albanese. He is the worst Prime Minister we've ever had, even worse than Gough Whitlam, if you can believe it. Make no mistake: Labor bears direct responsibility for Australia going backwards, for Australian families going backwards and for Australian farmers and businesses going backwards.

If you want to blame the previous government for what happened with the high inflation, well, don't forget COVID and the impact it had on this country. If they didn't bring in policies, a lot of people would have lost their livelihoods and homes.

Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to thank Senator Hughes for bringing this matter of public importance, because, as we know and as I have spoken about time and time again in this place, the cost-of-living crisis in our country is the most important issue affecting everyday Australians. It is the most important issue affecting young Australians. It is the most important issue affecting Australian families. People are struggling and juggling every single day just to make ends meet and buy the things that they and their families need.

Yet, in the face of this, we continue to see inaction on the part of the government, and special little accounting tricks and special little rebates that everybody gets, not just people who need it, because you can't quite work out who needs it and who doesn't, and now an attempt to destroy the credibility of and confidence in the independent Reserve Bank of our country. The Reserve Bank has one lever—monetary policy—to lift interest rates. They don't have any other levers at their disposal. They act on the basis of what's occurring in our economy. And what is occurring in our economy is homegrown inflation as a result of the actions and inactions of this government.

It was extraordinary last week to see the Treasurer pointing at the independent governor of our Reserve Bank and blaming her, her team and the board for high interest rates—blaming them for using the one lever they have at their disposal to bring down inflation. That is incredibly unfair, and it is not very good leadership, in my view. Interest rates have hit mortgage holders. Interest rates have hit renters. Interest rates have hit small businesses. Everybody is struggling. And the reality is that this government just keeps spending, based on a predetermined agenda that they are trying to keep to, despite the fact that it's very clear that it is having significant impacts on our economy and that Australians continue to suffer.

Let's face the absolute reality here. It is this government that is forcing the hand of the RBA, and we have been talking about that for months and months. I've been talking about it all year, as have my colleagues. So, Senator Hughes has rightly put this as a matter of public importance today.

Senator O'Neill talked about this energy rebate and how that is helping Australian families and helping to bring down inflation. But Senator O'Neill didn't speak about the fact that it's our own tax dollars that are being given back to us in a rebate to bring down our electricity bills. So this isn't even going near the promised cut to power bills that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer couldn't stop talking about before the last election. It doesn't even come close to delivering that. But that's pretty much the government's solution to most of the economic problems we have—to just find a new way to spend, spend, spend.

They have now focused on the election in May—or it could be in March or it could be in December. That is when they are going to face the Australian people, who are going to ask them why they have had to struggle and juggle the way they have and why we are global laggards when it comes to managing inflation—why they've looked for short-term gains and completely failed to engage with the critical task of fixing the root cause of our inflation.

Why are we at the back of the pack when it comes to tackling inflation? Our core inflation rate is higher than that of comparable economies, our contemporaries, and it's been here for longer. And our living standards have fallen. Yet this government continues to blame the former government, and now they are blaming the RBA instead of acting themselves.

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

It's always fascinating when the Liberals and Nationals bring forward these matters of public importance, but, even by their standards, Senator Hughes's motion today is truly something to behold! They've come here preaching about the cost of living as though they care, but let's be real. The only game they're playing is a never-ending tennis match. Every time we serve up a real solution to help Australians, they return it with a swift, resounding no: no to Labor's tax cuts that are helping 13.6 million Australians earn more and keep more of what they earn, no to cheaper medicines that will help patients save billions over the next four years, no to the energy price relief that helps the average family save $230, no to wage rises for 2.6 million low paid workers, no to helping build 30,000 social and affordable homes, no to helping over 200,000 students gain access to fee-free TAFE and no to never-before-seen historic wage rises. They just say no, no and no.

But of course, when it comes to things such as lowering workers' wages, worsening their rights and conditions, and stripping away their protections, suddenly they're all for it. When it's about helping billionaire business groups that pay for their campaign, they're quick to jump on board. This was never more evident than in Senator Cash's leaked secret letter in May of this year. In it, she described New South Wales Liberal workplace policies as 'good ideas that align strongly with the coalition's approach'. And what were those good ideas? They were scrapping the better off overall test, which would wipe protections for millions of hardworking Australians; making it easier for bosses to unfairly sack all Australians; gutting minimum wage awards for millions of Australians; and reintroducing individual contracts for all hardworking Australians. Now, imagine being 18 years old and having to negotiate directly with your employer, like the CEO of Westpac, or being a struggling single parent of three and having to negotiate directly with corporate giants like BHP or Qantas. That's what this would lead to.

These are also the same people who repeatedly endorsed the building code—the building code that smashed productivity by putting a limit on the number of apprentices working on site. We have abolished these horrendous laws, but the effects are still being felt in the construction industry. There are not enough apprentices. That's because they abolished those arrangements. That allowed that to happen. And, of course, these issues aren't just isolated to one sector. It is a recurring pattern that we see across every industry that those opposite interfere with.

Take mining, for example. Thanks to Labor's historic closing loopholes bill, the same job, same pay laws have led to over 300 labour hire workers at Queensland's Batchfire Callide mine receiving pay rises of up to $20,000, and we've seen the same results at Qantas operations time and time again. Now, for the first time in nearly a decade, these laws are making industry giants like BHP negotiate collective agreements in the Pilbara. They're working together to get better productivity and fairer wages, which I suggest they should do. They should take up the opportunity, and approach and deal with these laws in a productive, positive way.

Yet again, of course, we've seen those opposite staunchly oppose all of these initiatives. Peter Dutton and his so-called working-class Liberals and Nationals, along with their working-class billionaire paymasters—

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Multicultural Engagement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Point of order: the senator should refer to members in the other place by their proper titles.

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

I'm very happy to refer to the opposition leader, Peter Dutton—who's the person who's turning around and supporting those working-class billionaires to take money out of the pockets of every middle-class Australian in this country—by his proper title. The opposition leader, Mr Peter Dutton, is the one who's hell-bent on making sure billionaires get richer and Middle Australia gets poorer. We've seen the window-dressing from those opposite. When it came to wage increases for low paid workers in 2022, 2023 and 2024, Peter Dutton, the opposition leader, turned around and opposed those increases.

As the member for New England, Barnaby Joyce, said, 'Someone earning another $110 a week is just more window-dressing.' It just never ends from that mob opposite. They can never get enough. (Time expired)

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, every time those opposite come into this place and they start with the bluff and bluster and blaming everybody else for the problems they have caused, you know we've hit a nerve. Sadly, to Senator Sheldon's point just then, the only government in recent times to take money away from workers has been the Labor Party. It has been under the Labor Party that per capita income has gone down for workers and the cost of living has increased. Under Prime Minister Albanese and Treasurer Chalmers, the living standards of Australians, including millions of families in Western Australia, are going backwards. That's under Labor. For all of their talk about costs and wages, they are the ones who have deliberately implemented inflationary policies that are causing such pain for Australian families. Driven by the Treasurer's economic management over three budgets now, core inflation is stubbornly high at 3.9 per cent. Our inflation is now higher than that of any other advanced country in the world. Despite what those opposite say, it is the result of this government's mismanagement. In fact, since December, we are the only G10 nation where inflation has been increasing. As said by the Governor of the Reserve Bank, who has been scapegoated by those opposite, it is their responsibility.

And what has this resulted in for Western Australians? We've seen major increases in the price of household essentials, such as 10 per cent increases to food, housing, rent, electricity, gas, health, education, insurances and, of course, people's home mortgages. There's more bad news ahead for householders who were desperately hoping for a rate cut for their families before Christmas. Sadly, due to the incompetence of those opposite, that is very unlikely to occur. In fact, the Reserve Bank of Australia has ruled out any interest rate cuts this year. In Labor's three failed budgets, they've spent an additional $315 billion. They haven't been creating more jobs in the private sector. They've been pumping the economy with taxpayer dollars, which mostly go into the public sector. Two-thirds if not three-quarters of the new jobs haven't been created in private industry, which is where real jobs are created to assist with increasing productivity. Their answer to everything is, 'Tax more and spend—' (Time expired)

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I guess I would say there are two central charges you would make against this government. The first charge is that the government has had no time to solve the major economic problems facing the nation because it has been obsessed with working through a laundry list of issues that are important to the vested interests that put the government in its place. I mean the government is more interested in what is important to the CFMEU or the big super funds than it is in what matters to people, which is why it has failed on housing and inflation. The other central charge you'd have to make at this point in time is that the government has significant integrity issues. People that are sitting at the apex of this government have incurred integrity issues and trust issues because of the way they have chosen to conduct themselves in high, public office.

You only have to go back to 2022 and the election campaign to see that the promises made to the Australian people by this government were that it would be easier and cheaper under this government, and that has not been the case. You don't need a politician to tell you that.

Everyone knows that. But the point of consequence here is that the Treasurer, Mr Chalmers, has started to blame everyone for the woes that the government finds itself in: high inflation and low growth. We're in a pretty bad situation.

Instead of being honest and upfront about what the government can do—the government can run a fiscal policy or it can run an economic policy, which is going to help businesses, small businesses and families—he has taken aim at the major institutions that have nothing to do with the capacity of Mr Chalmers himself to do his job. Every day, you see him attacking the Reserve Bank or the Productivity Commission. The most recent salvo against the Reserve Bank was that it was smashing the economy, and the point Mr Chalmers was trying to make is that the Reserve Bank had interest rates too high. The reason the Reserve Bank has interest rates too high is that the government has not stopped spending since it won office.

If you look at the proportion of inflation that is in the economy today, a large proportion of that is because of public sector spending. The jobs figures that we see show that most employment growth now in Australia is happening in the public sector. More people are working for the government than ever before, and that is a rude shock to the average small-business person who gets out of bed every day and works hard. It's not fair.

The integrity issues that I mentioned before, which are now accumulating for the government, include the making of false claims to the Senate. This was aired in the newspapers on the weekend, where we found out that Mr Chalmers had failed to comply with an order for the production of documents because he filed a public interest immunity claim. In that claim, the Treasurer said that the disclosure of certain information in relation to the Cbus super fund would be contrary to the public interest because it would disclose commercial-in-confidence information.

But, because of the existence of freedom-of-information laws, we don't just rely on orders for the production of documents in the Senate. We also are able to access documents through FOI, and the information commissioner found the Treasurer had no case to cover up this file which he had received from Cbus. Last month, the information commissioner ordered that it be released. Last week, that file was released, and it revealed that there had been a secret lobbying campaign from the Cbus super fund to Mr Chalmers, not about anything commercial in confidence but about a special deal that the fund wanted so it could cover up the stamp duty costs in its member disclosures.

It seems very strange that the Treasurer would spend time and capital making false claims in a public interest immunity order, but it is perhaps not surprising, given the amount of integrity issues this government is accumulating alongside its failures to address the key economic issues of the day.

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

Order! The time for discussion has expired.