Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

There is no doubt when I am in Casey, talking to my residents and constituents, that cost of living is the biggest issue that they face today. There is an old saying that I like: if you spend too much time looking into the rear-vision mirror while you're driving, you'll crash into the car in front of you. Listening to the government continue to talk over the last three months about the previous government shows that their eyes are clearly focused on the rear-vision mirror. That's because they don't have a plan to address the rising cost of living. They have no plan to tackle the economic challenges that we face today.

Let's indulge the government's obsession with the rear-vision mirror for a moment and look back to March and April of 2020. We all remember the lines at Centrelink and the Treasury prediction of 15 to 20 per cent unemployment. I was not an MP at the time. I was working in business, worried for the future. I watched the coalition government ensure that Australia's recovery led the world on economic growth and jobs growth, all with lower debt levels relative to other advanced countries. The coalition government focused on jobs, as we know the ability to get a job and to keep it gives Australians more opportunities to manage their household budget and make the best choices for their families. I remember the then shadow Treasurer saying the test of the government was the unemployment level. With it currently sitting at 3.4 per cent, hitting a 50-year low, the former government well and truly passed that test. The Treasurer would do well to remember that the next time he says Australians have nothing to show for the current debt levels. We all know that, without the then government's support, businesses, particularly small businesses, would have closed and unemployment would have hit those terrifying projected numbers.

Labor promised the world during the election campaign, but the only thing they have been able to deliver is a string of broken promises. They have abandoned their commitment to cut power bills by $275 a year for the average Australian, a practical measure that could have made a difference to millions of Australians. Worse than having no plan, this government can't even accept a good idea and implement it immediately to help pensioners and veterans with their cost-of-living pressures and businesses with labour shortages. It took three months for the government to adopt our position on allowing pensioners and veterans to work more hours without impacting their pension. That is three months they could have been earning more as the economic clouds were looming, three months in which they could have possibly saved a little as prices continued to rise. To make pensioners and veterans wait three months to announce the policy at the jobs summit shows this government will always put politics and optics over the interests of Australians.

All of this is going on as interest rates rise. This is already hurting many Australians who are doing it tough. If the Treasurer fails to act, it will mean more pressure from inflation, more pressure from interest rates and higher costs of living for Australian families and small businesses. The single most important thing any government can do to help ease inflationary pressure is improve their budget position. That's what the coalition government did in government. We saw in recent years the largest budget turnaround in over 70 years—around $100 billion.

Labor has no plan to reduce the cost of living and no economic plan for Australia. The Labor Party went to the last election promising to run bigger deficits. This was confirmed by the independent Parliamentary Budget Office. By contrast, the PBO confirmed that the coalition were the only parties that went to the election with a pathway to improve the budget bottom line. The coalition's 2022-23 budget was balancing, and Labor extracted all these efforts.

Over the last 30 years, Labor governments have, on average, delivered higher unemployment, higher interest rates and higher electricity prices. This Labor government will do the same. Labor can't manage the economy and can't manage money. I just hope that the government stops looking in the rear-vision mirror and focuses on the road ahead. The last thing Australia needs right now is a crash.

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