James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the government's motion congratulating themselves on how good they are. Of course, I don't necessarily agree with that premise, so in the short time I've got I want to make three points. Firstly, there's nothing impressive in a government implementing promises that it took to an election—that's an expectation. If the bar is now so low that the government think they need to move a motion of self-congratulation on the things they took to the election, which they promised the people of this country they would do and have merely proceeded to implement, then I think they need to learn to be a bit better than that at impressing people.

Secondly, of course, the more concerning thing is what they've done since the election that they didn't tell the people of Australia they would do during the election campaign. The member talked about industrial relations reform, and it's staggering to me that, of the reforms that the government are putting in place through this legislation that the member touched on in her contribution, many of the core elements were not talked about whatsoever during the election campaign. If these reforms were so important, so vital and going to be so good for the people of this country, I'm truly shocked as to why they weren't front and centre of the Labor Party's election campaign to win government back in May. One wonders very deeply why it is that all these things that are going to apparently be good for the economy, dramatically increase wages and lead the Australian workers to the land of milk and honey were not points that they thought would be relevant to prosecute during an election campaign to help them win an election. Frankly, if this legislation on industrial relations is going to be so good for the people of Australia, that was a dramatically missed opportunity for the Labor Party to win a lot more votes than they did back in May, if their claims are that this legislation is so popular and going to be so good for the workers of this country are true.

One suspects, therefore, that the geniuses in the Labor Party campaign strategy team were not confident whatsoever that the people of Australia wanted these industrial relations reforms that are being rammed through this parliament right now. If there were any value to the claims that the government make about them as far as their benefit to the economy and their benefit to workers, then of course they would've prosecuted that in the election campaign. In fact it would've be front and centre of what they had as their argument for government. But multi-employer bargaining and a whole range of other things that are being rammed through this parliament in the final sitting week of the year were not talked about by the now government whatsoever in the election campaign. That is regrettable, and it's a breach of faith with the people of this country—that you had a secret plan, clearly, to implement reforms that you're so embarrassed about that you wouldn't talk about them during the election campaign, because you're repaying the union movement for the donations they gave you during the election. That's the reality of what's happening with that reform, we all know it and, unfortunately, we're all going to see the economic impact of those reforms if that does pass through this parliament week.

Finally, the thing that's missing from this motion is what the government isn't doing, which is taking any action whatsoever to assist households and businesses in this country to address the dramatic and crippling challenges of inflation and costs of living spiralling out of control. They've confirmed there's a huge problem. They said in their budget that electricity prices alone are going to increase over 56 per cent over the next two years. They handed down a budget and said, 'Electricity prices are going up by 56 per cent, and we're also going to do absolutely nothing about it.' That is what the budget was, 'Here's a problem, and no solution from your federal government.' How appalling. What a disgrace. The households and businesses of this country are now left in a very concerning predicament of having to plan for those challenges and a whole range of other cost-of-living challenges that keep on getting worse and worse as the economic data is released day after day, week after week. We don't want to see inflation spiralling out of control in this country, but the reality is the budget says it's climbing to at least eight per cent—so, inflation at eight per cent, electricity prices up 56 per cent, gas over 40 per cent. We all know how difficult it has been at the petrol pump and in the grocery stores of late, and that's the first responsibility of this government, to help people make ends meet. They're doing absolutely nothing about that. So, they can congratulate themselves on implementing changes they never told the people of this country about during the election. But they should focus on the things that matter, and that starts with addressing the cost-of-living crisis we have in this country.

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