Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I congratulate the member for Reid on her election to this place and I take this opportunity to maybe correct her on some of her comments. I can assure the member for Reid that if you go to virtually any factory or manufacturing facility in my electorate of Forde there are good, secure, long-term, high-skilled jobs available. It's not an issue; I can assure the member for Reid. I would also point out to the member for Reid that I appreciate the work and the effort and the sacrifice that our teachers, doctors and nurses put in each and every day for our communities but I would remind the member for Reid that the vast majority of those people are employed by state Labor governments through employment contracts by those state Labor governments, so the wage increases can be dealt with through their negotiations with their state Labor counterparts.

I'm pleased to stand in this House today and speak on the matter raised by the member for Fadden in bringing up this crucially important point. Slightly over 30 per cent of the electorate of Forde has a mortgage, and I've got no doubt they are looking at the latest interest rate rise today with trepidation and fear for managing their household budgets. The reason they're doing that is because of many other factors over the last six or nine months that have been brought to bear on those budgets, not only the consequences of the invasion by Russia of Ukraine and the global economic impact that that has raised through higher fuel prices and higher gas prices but also the impact of the floods in Queensland and in New South Wales, particularly in Queensland. I look at the impact of the floods on the Lockyer Valley, as the member for Groom, sitting next to me, would know well, as the member for Bowman would know well, representing an area that was once the food bowl of South East Queensland but now sadly is more housing than food bowl. Sitting opposite, the member for Blair's community also would have been significantly impacted. We have to look at all of these factors. They are all impacting on an increase in living costs for everyday Australians, and this latest interest rate rise does nothing to ease that.

As we look a little bit further down the track we come to the end of September, when the fuel excise will be restored to its full amount and Australian households will have to pay another 22 cents a litre. But importantly, the reasons for reducing that fuel excise in the first place, the recognition of the consequences of the conflict in Ukraine and other global economic factors, haven't changed. At the time we thought they may change over the course of six months but they haven't changed, so we now face the situation where the same rationale for introducing that reduction in the fuel excise still exists. I think it's a fair question of government, why they don't, given those circumstances still exist, seek to extend the life of that reduction in the fuel excise. Now I'll hear those opposite say, 'We can't do it because there's a trillion dollars of debt or there is this or there is that.'

I don't lose a single moment's sleep over the amount of debt we have as a nation, as a government. I do lose plenty of sleep over the amount of debt we have personally in our households via household mortgage debt or credit card debt, whatever the case may be. But I'm proud of the fact that when we were in government, we kept people in jobs, we kept businesses open, we kept a roof over people's heads and we gave them certainty through 2½ very difficult years of the pandemic, and I'll never apologise for the decisions that were made in that space to achieve those outcomes. We have some of the best economic conditions in the world as a result—3.5 per cent unemployment, economic growth that's the envy of the world. We had a track record in government that we're proud to stand on. I commend this motion to the House.

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