Jenny Ware (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion put by the member for Hawke. I do not support the motion moved by the member for Hawke, but I do commend him for having the courage to bring to this place's attention the dismal record of his government to date on the economy. As the Prime Minister has recently reminded us, it has now been 10 months since the Albanese government came to power. In the lead-up to the election in May last year, Labor made many promises. The Prime Minister recently said that Australia has had 'a very good 10 months'. I am yet to meet any Australian who has said to me that the last 10 months have been good. I also note that, despite us asking the Prime Minister these questions, the Prime Minister and indeed his whole team have been unable to find one single Australian who has come forward to say that they have had a very good 10 months.

To that end, in the last 10 months, we've seen nine consecutive interest rate rises under this government—a rate of rises that we have not seen in 30 years. The cash rate now sits at 3.6 per cent. Inflation has reached levels not seen since 1990 and, as at the end of December, the inflation rate was sitting at 7.8 per cent. Power prices have continued to rise under this government, not fall. We've had increased taxes, and charities are now reporting seeing people on double incomes asking for help to put food on the table. People are being forced to take on a second job to pay the bills. This is of course eating into their family time and recreation time. A record number of Australians are turning to Lifeline, and this has been recently reported by Lifeline. The average Australian mortgage holder is now paying close to $2,000 per month for that mortgage. They're paying an extra $20,000 per year.

In my electorate of Hughes, over 30 per cent of the electorate are mortgage holders and, on average, they are now spending more than $1,700 a month on their mortgage than they were before this government came to power. I am yet to hear any Australian say—and particularly nobody from my electorate has said this to me—that they have had a good 10 months.

If we look at some of the promises that were made by Labor leading up to the election, both the Prime Minister and the Treasurer made many, many promises. There was a promise to cut electricity bills by $275. That promise has been broken. There was a promise of cheaper mortgages. That promise has been broken. There were promises of no changes to super. Those promises have been broken. There were promises of lower inflation—again, broken promises. There was a promise of, 'We're not touching your franking credits.' That promise has been broken. Franking credits are important. Franking credits were first brought in by a Labor government. At the time, Paul Keating said, 'This is a double tax, and I am relieving Australians of this burden.' Now that is being reversed. We also had the promise that there would be no industry-wide bargaining. 'That's not part of our policy,' we were told. It is part of the policy. Now, after 10 months, it is time that the Labor government stopped rewarding union mates and instead focused on the real issues in the economy.

We look first of all at electricity. On 97 separate occasions before the election, the Prime Minister said electricity prices would decrease by $275 under a government that he would lead. The opposite has occurred. Electricity prices continue to increase. In my home state of New South Wales, we are now $564 a year on average worse off than we were under the former coalition government. This has had a massive impact on more than 280,000 small businesses. I was speaking on the weekend to one of my local café owners. He's now paying $50,000 a year on electricity. This is unsustainable.

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