Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy Speaker. We have seen a series of 50-basis-point interest-rate increases since the election, and those increases are only being felt now. Indeed, the first has been felt from 1 September because it takes several months for these things to flow through. By Christmas—just at the time when families are spending money on presents for their loved ones, on getting together at that wonderful time of the year and on going on holidays—they are going to be feeling the extreme pain of these mortgage repayments. That'll be in November and December. We and the market are expecting a further increase coming through tomorrow, which in a few months time will flow through to their mortgage repayments.

As I said, the government have no plan to deal with this. The best we got last week was a return to pattern bargaining—a race between wages and prices. We know from experience that, ultimately, real wages lose. That's what happens. You wreck the economy. That's what happens. There is an alternative, which is a comprehensive economywide plan that recognises the full range of cost-of-living pressures that Australians are facing.

They are walking away from their election promises. They have walked away from their electricity price promise. We haven't heard the Prime Minister or the relevant minister once confirming that election policy—not once in this place, and I'll make a fair bet that they won't do that today either. We have seen them break promises on material increases in real wages. They have given up on that. We saw that in their economic statement. Those opposite have no plan to deal with the cost-of-living pressures that Australians are facing.

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