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

I rise to speak on the cost-of-living motion. I'll start by saying there is no doubt that times are really tough out there. Households, businesses—small businesses in particular—and households on fixed incomes are really struggling. That is something that the government can bury their head in the sand over if they choose to, but the reality is those of us that are genuinely listening to our communities and hearing about those challenges and struggles on a daily basis are very despondent that we have a government that is doing nothing about this crisis.

As other speakers have pointed out—and I commend the member for Mayo's contribution regarding electricity, because this is really important—it is time for the government to be honest with people about a promise they made during the May election to reduce electricity prices and what the reality of that situation is going to be. I think the government attempt to put a lot of smoke and mirrors around this solemn promise that they made, but the timeline is really important and it is really straightforward. The then Labor opposition announced their climate change energy policy in December 2021. Within that were certain measures. This poor company called RepuTex, which will probably never recover from their association with this Labor policy costing exercise, costed that policy and said clearly in the document that if the Labor Party were elected and implemented all of their electricity policies that by 2025, as against December 2021, electricity prices would fall for the average residential consumer by 18 per cent, or $275. That's by 2025. Labor have confirmed in their recent budget that in the financial year ending 2023 and the financial year ending 2024, electricity prices are going to go up cumulatively by 56 per cent. To achieve that 18 per cent, there needs to be 74 per cent off come June 2024. It will be a spectacular effort if they can keep that promise to achieve a 74 per cent reduction between June 2024 and June 2025, but I highly doubt that is going to occur.

It's time to come clean and be honest to people that you made a promise to them and you're not going to keep it. Yes, of course, issues have come to bear since then, like the war in Ukraine. That was in February, and subsequent to February, the then Labor opposition continued to make this spurious promise that they would reduce electricity prices by 18 per cent or $275 to the average residential consumer by 2025. They have then handed down a budget and said that by the 30 June 2024 prices will go up by 56 per cent—a 74 per cent deficit to make up in 12 months. This is simply not going to happen, and the households and businesses of this country deserve to be told the truth by the government, which is that they told you they were going to cut your bills by 18 per cent and that's no longer going to happen.

There are some people out there that still have faith in commitments that are made in election campaigns and believe that there's no reason a government, if they said they were going to do something, would not deliver on it. As the member for Mayo points out, there are people struggling with their electricity bills that may still be thinking there is a dramatic reduction in their bill on the way because the Labor Party said in opposition said 'If we are in government we will cut your bills by 18 per cent, or $275.' Clearly people are still hoping that that's going to happen. If it's not, they deserve some honesty from this government. The government should come clean and say: 'What we said we would do is not going to happen. We told you we'd cut your electricity bills, but that's not the case.'

Far from it, prices are increasing dramatically. It could be that the 56 per cent by 2024 is only going to increase more and more in the future. When we get to 2025, when we thought we'd have had an extra $275 in our pocket through a reduction in our electricity bill, it's going to be dramatically different. People make serious decisions about their budgets based on these things. It is high time we had some honesty. The government should come clean and admit that that commitment is never going to happen. It should be honest with the people of this country.

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