House debates

Tuesday, 6 September 2022

Matters of Public Importance

Economy

3:50 pm

Photo of Garth HamiltonGarth Hamilton (Groom, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

What an important MPI for us to be talking on: the Albanese government's utter failure to address rising cost-of-living pressures facing Australians. We had the minister talking about what happened in the first week of this government, talking it up. The minister missed, of course, one important thing that happened in that first week, which was the government's complete backflip, complete walking away, from their commitment to reduce your energy costs by $275. This was a key component of the campaign. It sat right beside their 43 per cent emissions reduction policy. This was what provided balance to that argument. It was presented as a bit of a red herring, to try to show that there was some balance, some reasonable behaviour, being exhibited. But what we saw in that first week was immediately—bang—walking away from that commitment to reduce your energy bills by $275.

Today we saw the Prime Minister, on being asked three or four questions on this issue, refusing to answer them, and this has been all the way through. Every time we've raised this—'Do you maintain your commitment to reduce energy bills by $275?'—the government has said nothing on it. It's refused to answer this. It has walked away from it completely. This is what happened in the first week of this government. We saw exactly the intent of the government. They're not going to focus on cost-of-living pressures. They have far different things to focus on. I think I also heard the previous speaker talk about a trillion dollars of debt that they had inherited as just some victims of this.

Let's be very, very clear: it's every dollar of which you agreed to, and you suggested that we spend more. You are now in government. You are no longer in opposition, you are in government. You are responsible. What has caused these cost-of-living pressures is not some historical incident. These are things happening now, and you are the government; this is on your watch. What you do now matters. Giving us the same speeches from opposition that you gave before, pointing out to us on this—it's your responsibility.

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