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

Millions of Australians standing at the check-out feel the pain of our cost-of-living crisis. Yesterday new research revealed that one in three Australians aren't confident they'll be able to afford their housing costs over the next 12 months. Living day in, day out stressed and afraid about how you're going to pay your next bill is not the life in the lucky country that Australians have come to expect.

Canberrans are far from immune from this. Here in the ACT we have the lowest bulk-billing rate in the country. Over half of 17- to 18-year-olds have to fork out the full amount to see a doctor. It's unsurprising but also a source of shame that a growing number of people here in Canberra are turning to Google when they're sick, because they can't afford to see a GP. We also have the nation's highest childcare fees and the highest rate of persistent homelessness in the country.

The cost-of-living crisis has become one of the hallmarks of our time and will be a defining issue at the forthcoming election. I acknowledge the efforts of the Treasurer, the finance minister and this government to address this and, especially, to bring down inflation. There have been steps in the right direction, especially when we here on the crossbench have given them a gentle, and at times not so gentle, nudge in the right direction, but the magnitude of the crisis demands a parliament willing to be much bolder.

The household electrification acceleration projects that the crossbench agreed with Minister Bowen are an important step forward, but we need to roll that out at scale. Rather than offering short-term, one-off energy bill relief, we should be ensuring that every Australian household can fully electrify and so save thousands of dollars every year into the future. Be they renters, apartment owners, or social or public housing tenants, everyone should have the opportunity to benefit from the savings that electrification can bring to Australians.

Rather than the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, we need a $20 billion, a $30 billion or even a $40 billion HAFF. We need to be getting our priorities straight. When we're faced with challenges such as national security, we see both major parties commit to hundreds of billions of dollars on submarines sometime in the future, yet when we have Australians struggling to put a roof over their heads, we see nowhere near that magnitude of urgency, spending and bipartisanship.

We make students pay tens of thousands of dollars for their degrees now, charging them interest for money that they have already repaid. The fact that we haven't changed the date of indexation during this parliament is disgraceful.

There are almost a million Australians living below the poverty line because our so-called safety net payments are so vastly inadequate. Until we start fairly taxing our gas and other natural resources, I simply do not want to hear that we can't afford to do this. Norway has a $2.8 trillion sovereign wealth fund. Imagine if we had the political courage to do that here. If our major parties weren't so completely and utterly captured by the fossil fuel industry, we could have done that, and I think Australians would want us to do that. But it's not too late. We can do that now.

There are some deep structural problems that we as a country need to fix, especially when it comes to competition. We can't keep talking about a cost-of-living crisis and not talk about addressing competition in this country. When interest rates come down, we need to see the banks pass that on and supermarket prices come down. I'm deeply worried that, in our system of duopolies and the big four, we won't.

CommBank just announced a $5 billion half-yearly profit, which is pretty good in a cost-of-living crisis. We know that, in our current system, any savings will be banked, because there's no competition without a strong parliament putting people first. Why would we expect that when we have another duopoly here? Rather than dealing with more competition and trying to improve the lives of, and reconnect with, the people that they should be representing, they're stitching up a deal to lock out competition. It's the duopoly acting in the interests of the duopoly.

This is a last-gasp attempt in a country where people have had a gutful with the lack of choice in our economy and in politics and with you entrenching your power. It's shameful, and I hope people see it for what it is—the duopoly that's overseeing duopolies wants to entrench the duopoly.